 I just need you guys to know that I filmed for like 25 minutes without my microphone on so we're gonna do this again. Hello there my beautiful, delightful, talented, lovely and gosh darn it good looking internet friends. Welcome back to my channel. Thank you so much for joining me here today on Footless Joe. I am Joe. I am still missing a foot and today we're gonna be taking a look at a couple videos by a person, a channel I'm not sure, by the name of Darman. Recently there has been some hubbub in my communities about the fact that a few of these videos that have recently been released are really ableist, ableist. Okay now if you hear that word and you either a don't know what I'm talking about or b immediately want to throw up and leave I understand stick with me. I was on Instagram this morning and I saw a variety of accounts that I follow of people with disabilities talking about the fact that Darman had recently released a couple videos that they felt were very ableist, perpetuated harmful stereotypes, just really did bad things for people with disabilities and it piqued my interest. As a person with a disability I always feel like I have to like demonstrate it to the camera. I've wanted to make a video for quite some time now talking about this concept of ableism and being ableist and how I actually feel about that and what it means but I never had like a good reason to make an ableism video until now. If you aren't familiar with Darman, his channel across Facebook, YouTube, Instagram has many, many, many millions of followers, billions of views. He's very well known for this formulaic inspirational content. What I mean by that is that all of his videos basically follow the same pattern. You can even see that by the titles. Here's just a few from the last couple weeks. Gold stickers dump their boyfriends instantly regret it. Sister is shamed of her disabled brother. She instantly regrets it. Teen humiliates new kid on first day of school instantly regrets it. There's very much a pattern in these titles and there's a pattern in these videos. The theme of the channel is we're not just telling stories, we're changing lives. The point of the videos is to leave you with some kind of quick message of like inspiration or be a better person and I'll be honest most of this isn't too deep. It's not like the acting is top quality. So there are actually three videos that he has recently released that deal with some kind of disability be it intellectual, having to walk with crutches or being in wheelchair. We are going to take a look at primarily popular girl humiliates disabled girl. She instantly regrets it. Let's dive in. There's Noah. He's so hot. I'm captain of the cheerleading team. It only makes sense. Hey watch where you're going. I'm so sorry Angela. It was an accident. You better be sorry wheelchair Wendy. So here is the intricate storyline. There is a pretty popular girl who wants to go to prom with the handsome jock and as she approaches him to chat with him wheelchair Wendy which is what she calls this girl in a wheelchair. You better be sorry wheelchair Wendy is also in the room. This girl drops over books asked for some help to pick them up at one point asked if the handsome guy would like to go to prom with her and the popular girl is just a real jerk about everything. Can't you do anything right? Probably a long shot but since prom is coming up. What do you want to go with me? You have to be kidding. You really think the captain of the football team is going to go to prom with someone like you? Continues making fun of her won't help her pick up her books and then shames her for even thinking that someone like him would consider going to prom with someone like her and at this point we have the classic darman formula in which our main character goes you see you see a few years ago I took a really bad hit and then like tells the behind the scenes of why someone should change the way that they're thinking he talks about having a football injury and having to be in a wheelchair and how people were mean to him so he understands what it's like to be disabled which we'll get to that in a moment and the popular girl realizes the error of her ways wow I had no idea you went through any of that I'm so sorry Noah flash forward to the next scene the girls are on their way to prom and they see Wendy on the way to prom as well and invite her to come with them but in a shucking twist that none of us saw coming the jock invited her to go to prom and kind so that he is taking pity on the disabled girl takes her and also pushes her wheelchair I do not know a single person who has a chair who has ever appreciated a relative stranger pushing their chair like that's just be like someone just coming and picking you up and carrying you somewhere when you didn't want them to do that like it's not a great experience don't push people in wheelchairs if they aren't asking you to do so that's a good rule to follow but on the surface what's so harmful about this story like you get to feel good at the end of it you know the the hero guy did a good thing the disabled girl gets a date the popular girl's changed her ways however if we take a little bit of a closer look I think there are some elements here that we've come to accept as pretty normal in culture pretty normal in storytelling that actually do have some pretty rough implications for me personally when I look at this storyline it's not like I'm saying this is the most harmful video ever made but there is a pretty common and hurtful stereotype that is perpetuated within these sorts of videos and that is the idea of the able-bodied hero you know the handsome jock took that girl to prom ah that's that's so great for her like wow she's so special he decided to basically take pity on her and bring her to the prom that is how the film is presented and this idea of like pity being kind of people who are disabled you see basically everywhere and it's really not helpful the idea that you should like be nice to disabled people because they have such hard lives and go through so much instead of like seeing them as people and wanting to engage and connect and learn about them as human beings is just not the best right like if someone only sees me as an amputee if they only uh want to be kind to me or talk to me or invite me to something because I'm the poor amputee girl that feels pretty crappy disabled people I know I've said it before and I'll say it again are just people and I don't know if you know this but disabled people also get asked to prom not out of pity but because people actually care about them and like them as human beings too other element of this that I have spoken at length about in other videos is the fact that the actors who play these disabled characters are able-bodied they don't eat crutches they aren't in a wheelchair they are perfectly capable of walking on their own two feet and yet they are portraying these characters who are disabled in no way am I sitting here saying that these actors are bad people for portraying these characters but rather if you actually want to make a difference in the world darn it consider casting people who are actually looking for these roles where it is their experience where someone can actually bring the experience of being a real disabled person and bring that reality to the characters that you're hoping to portray instead of just relying on what people always do by casting able-bodied actors to play disabled characters which brings us to an issue that other people brought up I've heard friends and acquaintances saying hey breaking your leg and having to be on crutches or in a wheelchair for like a couple weeks is not the same thing as being disabled quick personal story on this before I got my prosthetic leg and I was on crutches if someone could only see my crutches like if they were in the car seat next to me and I was in a drive-through or if I was at checkout and they like see me from waist up and someone would ask me what like why are you on crutches what happened I'd be like oh yeah I lost my leg there were quite a few times and this is always adorable slash hilarious to me that people were like I totally know how you feel I sprained my ankle ones I couldn't walk for like two weeks it was awful and I'm like yes those things are indeed exactly the same however I know that people want to like draw similarities they want to draw comparisons it's part of conversation I'll be honest if there's any kind of situation that helps someone understand the situation of someone else like if you've never been on crutches and all of a sudden you are temporarily and you realize wow everything's a lot more difficult you might have a better understanding of what people with certain kinds of disabilities live with but you're not gonna have the full picture of it you're not actually going to understand because it's not your life all the time here's the other thing and probably the biggest thing for me it took a little while for me to like put my finger on it Wendy in the wheelchair really is just a prop because there's nothing about her life or story that provokes any change in anyone else it's the able-bodied person's story of understanding temporarily what it was like to not be able to walk that changes the popular girl's mind it has nothing to do with the character of Wendy anything she said anything she's done she changes her whole mind or outlook because her able-bodied friend broke his leg once like it's still not about disability there's still no actual compassion she just feels bad because she didn't understand that he had to be on crutches for a while once I also want to point out the uh tweet the darman put out with one of his latest releases featuring a disabled character it reads there is no greater disability in life than the inability to see a person as more and it's not that I don't appreciate the sentiment but also coming from an able-bodied person claiming that the biggest disability in life is a thought process that can be changed versus some kind of physical or mental disability that is unchangeable and someone has to deal with for the rest of their lives very different things now something that I think is very important to bring up is that the fact that a number of people who are disability advocates who have spoken up on this issue or commented on the videos have repeatedly had their comments deleted when they said hey this is ableist or this is wrong across the board I don't think that's cool when you're telling a story about a disabled character and that you are muting the voices of people who actually have disabilities and approves the point that you are just using disability as a crutch to tell your stories into videos that make you a lot of money you don't actually care about people with disabilities viewpoints or experiences and if they raise their voice and are like hey this was kind of harmful here's why you're like nope don't care I'm gonna keep using this because it's helpful to me the big question here is this video ableist okay so let's talk about the word ableism for a second I'm gonna be a hundred percent honest with you and hope that you understand that I am a work in progress myself when I hear someone call something ableist I initially have this almost repulsive reaction of like oh my god just stop what just just stop you're over complicating things what even is ableism I don't care it's another thing that I apparently can mess up and say the wrong thing about even as a person who is disabled I have this complicated relationship with the word however ableism is a very real thing and it's something I've been looking into a little bit more to understand think of it as any of the other isms racism sexism classism basically what it is is perpetuating harmful stereotypes about people who are not able bodied it's not hiring or in this case not casting people who are actually disabled it is assuming that people with disabilities are less in some way be it they could never get a date to prom or they don't think as clearly as you do it's thinking that disability is in some way lesser or always needs to be fixed it's also using disabled people as props for either being tragic stories or super inspirational stories and not seeing people as whole characters so honestly at the core of it I do think that these videos that are being called out do have a lot of ableist pieces in them right like someone who was perfectly able bodied to our understanding was cast to play this character the disabled character is just a prop to further other people's stories and is just there to be inspirational there's the assumption that she couldn't get a date to prom and there's the able bodied hero complex of the you know cool jock who comes in and saves her and takes her to prom anyways because he's such a great guy one of the things I think is most important when we're talking about ableism is that if I say something is ableist or someone's being ableist I'm not saying that's their entire identity I'm just saying you did this thing it was ableist and there's room to grow and change personal story from my own life before I was an amputee I definitely had a lot of ableist thoughts about amputees if I saw one in public lurking around a coffee shop all I would think about was their disability I kind of made this assumption that if someone was an amputee it was like their entire life right like I saw amputees is kind of one-dimensional before I knew anyone who was missing a limb because I didn't have any connection to it before I started getting connected to the community the thoughts that I had about amputees were absolutely ableist and I recognized that and changed and grew personally in any kind of conversation where we're saying you have done something wrong there needs to be room for and here's how you could do better right if I'm going to call this ableist it's not because I want to sit here and say you suck you did a bad thing it's because I want things to be better in the future and I don't think people are aware of the harm that their actions caused the vast majority of the time and Darman's whole message is we're not just telling stories we're changing lives he obviously wants these videos to do good in the world and if you look at the comments people really connect with a lot of stuff that he does they feel inspired they want to be better person that in and of itself is a good thing but I would really challenge him if that's what you are shooting for then cast people who actually represent the characters that you are writing for consult with people who have the life experiences of the characters that you are writing do not perpetuate harmful stereotypes and use people with disabilities as a prop for inspiration that's not cool and it's been done way too much for me it's it's interesting and informative and kind of stretches me to look at these situations and come to my own conclusions about what I think is going on so I like analyzing or reacting to different kinds of videos let me know if you like seeing these kinds of videos and also if you want me to do a video that kind of goes further into what ableism is and isn't and and some thoughts and feelings I have about that and examples of what we might all be able to do better it's a topic that again I have some kind of discomfort speaking about because I am in the process of learning but I also do think that there's benefit to showing people that you aren't there yet that you're in the process of learning about things and changing and growing yourself and that is where I am so if you want to see that video let me know in the comment section down below or by hitting like on this video thank you so much for taking a few minutes out of your day to watch this video here with me today thank you to my patrons for your amazing generosity and keeping these videos going I truly appreciate it and to you watching this video right now you could be anywhere else in the world doing anything else and you chose to hang out with me for a few minutes and I really appreciate that I love you guys I'm thinking about you and I will see you in the next video bye guys