Pushing Media Forward: Getting Real with Disability Portrayal

The history of disability depiction in the media is a terribly sorry one. There is real hope that this is about to change with the premier of Push Girls this week on The Sundance Channel, riding along in the lives of four vibrant women who happen to have spinal cord injuries and get around on wheels. The usual approach in film and television is to have a disabled person who is either angry (Mr. Potter in It’s a Wonderful Life), angry (Tom Cruise as Ron Kovic in Born On the Fourth of July), or angry (and tormented, as in The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Phantom of the Opera). Even in the recent and wonderful Hugo, directed by Martin Scorsese, Sascha Baron Cohen’s train station guard is the bad guy, wearing a leg brace thanks to a war wound. He is redeemed at the end as a nice guy, but make note: they gave the one angry character in the film a disability. The Push Girls aren’t going to be angry. They’re going to be feisty. A way different thing. Continue Reading »

New show gives close-up of women in wheelchairs

LOS ANGELES (AP) — In the opening moments of a new reality show, a pretty blonde pulls up to a gas station in her sporty Mustang. As she fills the tank, she catches the eye of a man across the station and smiles. Soon she drives away, waving to her admirer as she leaves.

Another Kardashian-style series? Not quite. Around her fueling and flirting, we also see the woman assembling a wheelchair, popping herself into it and then disassembling the chair before driving off.

The blonde is 28-year-old Tiphany Adams, one of the stars of “Push Girls,” a Sundance Channel reality series premiering Monday that takes viewers into the lives of four beautiful wheelchair-bound women. Continue Reading »

‘Push Girls’ Share Their Inspiring Outlook

Ellen met two women from the cast of the new reality show, “Push Girls,” who explained how they don’t let life in a wheelchair keep them from accomplishing their goals. Continue Reading »