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Mills planning 'fake' disabilities show

By Cathy Reay

Heather MillsHeather Mills has revealed that she is developing a television documentary in which non-disabled people are given “fake” disabilities to see what life is like for disabled people.

The campaigner and model told This Morning presenter Eamonn Holmes that she is working on the programme with her Dancing On Ice partner Matt Evans. “I want to get people like you Eamonn and get you to spend a week in a wheelchair. To see what it's like to live with a disability. You would have to be looked after and pushed around by your wife,” she said.

"We would also get a chef like Gordon Ramsay, blindfold him, and put him in the kitchen for a week."

The news follows on from Disability Now’s November issue when we reported outrage that a similar idea had been pitched, (I’m a celebrity… get me a fake disability, November 2009), though it is not certain whether the two are linked.

Although she said that the programme is in production, Mills did not reveal its transmission date or which broadcaster had commissioned it.

Heather Mills

Posted by Dee R. Stainer at 20 Feb 10 11:29
I hope this programme doesnt get made as it is already bad enough for people that are disabled with getting non disabled people to see what it is like to be disabled. One of the comments on the article was that if you where in a wheelchair you need to cared for and wheeled around because you cant do it so wrong must wheelchair user push themselves as they dont want to seen as weak. I am a wheelchair user myself and get a lot of comments from people that I am too lazy walk and I only use a chair to get benefits. I can walk very short distances in pain so I need to use a wheelchair to get around. In the past I have had been called names, my door flour bombed and window shot at because i am disabled.

where I am living now I am getting people commenting all the time especially when I am on the bus that I am faking my disability which hurts as I wish I was but I am not faking. I try and not bite when they are saying it but sometimes I do and say come and live my shoes for a couple of weeks and see how you would feel being in constant pain 24/7. I doubt they would want to live like I do not being able to do things that they take for granted like having a shower and being able reach every part of the body so that you are clean.
Dee

Experiences of 'the other'

Posted by MHL at 18 Nov 11 11:56
Hi I can see a tension here re of course none of us can ever experience the world precisley as another does - disability or not - and we are always the centre of our own expereices and tend to have pretty limited notions of what others are feeling. Should this mean that we don't attempt to support others to develop their capacity for imaginative empathy? I don't think so - of course a TV doc headed up by a publicity seeking celeb might not be the best way to go about it!
Cheers
MHL

Replicating Disability

Posted by Anonymouse at 07 Apr 10 18:00
I don't think it will make a person accommodate or experience anything apart from superficial humiliation.
Disability in the case of chronic illness cannot be replicated for anyone except the bearer of that illness.
Chronic Illness and it's consequential pain and disability is hard to understand because most people can't see physical or emotional pain.
How can you show the "Fake" effects of Epilepsy or the "Fake" physical pain of Multiple Sclerosis.


Mr A Mouse

Use Us the disabled not Actors or celebritys

Posted by Keith T R Shields at 07 Sep 10 17:02
I feel that Heather Mills may have thought the idea would help get disabled people seen in the right light as really disabled but actually using false or people faking it on screen will cause so much more damage to the fight for disabled rights. Where I applaud the thought of her support I cant help but feeling that it was not thought through fully & would as many genuine disabled people if we were seen in our own rights & really disabled people on screen it would be better all round by all means have a crew filming the problems of crossing roads getting into buildings travelling by plane train & boat to high light some problems would be good. But for god sake use us the disabled not some fake or celebrity (get a celebrity along let them comment & support even try some of the actions & dispositions we deal with alongside a real disabled person.
Keith T R Shields