Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Creature discomforts: Aardman ads challenge views of disability

Leonard Cheshire Disability campaigns to change the way people think about, and respond to, disability. The campaign Creature discomforts features six animal characters, each of which is voiced by a disabled person. Characters include Flash the sausage dog, Spud the slug, Brian the bull terrier and Peg the hedgehog - all wheelchair users who have different disabilities - Slim the stick insect with a walking stick and Tim the tortoise on crutches. .


1 Watch me


2 Stick


3 Rubbish


4 Sweet shop


5 Love and sex


6 School / Sneaking up

Script:
Once kids find out you've got a disability they will play on it forever, although they didn't understand what was wrong, I'd lost my peripheral vision at school and they knew they could get up close to me, whack me in the side of a head with a book, and I'd never be able to spot who'd done it. So you develop other skills like very sensitive hearing and things like that as a counter measure. School wasn't particularly pleasant, but you learn how to deal with it.


7 Education

Script:
ADRIAN CARTER (Owl): It took me a little while to build up the courage to get back into the jist of going into education because you're interacting again isn't it you're back out there with the public. People look at you like, 'oh, he's in a wheelchair and he's in Uni, good on ya mate' you know what I mean.
CHRISTOPHER DAVIES (Chameleon): They can be quite judgemental about your disability. I mean the number of people who've told me 'you can't do that', really annoys me, especially as I can do better than they can sometimes.

8 Lesson

Script:
DEAN DAWES (Shrimp): Some people go, 'oh, look at that chair' and be all nice about it. But then I get these other people that go 'argh, look at that chair!'
DEBBIE REYNOLDS (Cat): If I did mention to someone that I was hard of hearing, they would start mouthing and talking to me like I was stupid, 'a li-ttle-bit-like-this', you know, 'a-re y-ou o-k?'
DEAN DAWES (Shrimp): They need to be taught a lesson... a very big one.

No comments: