The BBC Three season of disability-related programmes – our biggest ever season dedicated to the lives and experiences of young people living with disabilities - has been on-air for a few weeks now and has been praised by disability campaigners and charities.
The season has garnered critical acclaim from TV reviewers too. Viewers have shared their appreciation on Facebook and Twitter using the #DefyingTheLabel hashtag.
The season concludes tonight with the final episode of ‘The Unbreakables: Life & Love On Disability Campus’ at 9pm and has included 15 specialist documentaries, current affairs features, a factual drama and a comedy panel game show and gave an unprecedented insight into life as a young person with disabilities. It underlines our ambitious plans to increase diversity on and off air, and aims to quadruple on screen portrayal of people with disabilities by 2017 as part of this. Speaking about the season yesterday, BBC Three controller Damian Kavanagh said, “We wanted to challenge established attitudes towards young people with disabilities and the fantastic reaction to the season shows it has had a genuine impact.”
Kathryn Rudd, Principal of National Star College, told us earlier this week: "The BBC Three Defying the Label season has been a triumph for reality over stereotyping. As a viewing public we've been engaged, challenged and forced to think in different ways about our own perceptions.
"It is vital that this season is the start of more diverse programme commissioning across all channels and that programmes like these become a staple in our daily TV viewing.
"As Morgan states in The Unbreakables - 'having a disability is like having a bubble round you, occasionally somebody pops the bubble to see your personality'. The Defying the Label season has had a great sound track - that of bubbles popping."
Clare Pelham, CEO, Leonard Cheshire Disability also commented on the season:“It’s not often you watch something on television you’ll never forget. The BBC Three ‘Defying the Label’ season is unforgettable and for me is about the growth of a movement. A movement, we at Leonard Cheshire Disability hope, will be the last chapter in the fight for civil rights. Sometime soon, discrimination against disabled people will become unthinkable. And when it does, the ‘Defying the Label’ season will be one of those watershed moments when we fundamentally shifted our understanding.” You can read more of Clare’s thoughts on ‘Defying the Label’ on Leonard Cheshire Disability’s website
Interim Chief Executive of Scope, Mark Atkinson said: “It’s fantastic that BBC Three has dedicated a series of television slots to programming about disabled people. We hope ‘Defying the Label’ will get viewers thinking differently about disability. However, seeing a realistic portrayal of disabled people on our screens shouldn’t just be a seasonal thing. There are 11 million disabled people in Britain yet they tell us, they rarely see their lives reflected on our screens. Scope research shows that 9 in 10 disabled people believe that more disabled people in the media would improve attitudes on disability. We need to see more disabled people included in a wide range of programming. This should focus on getting disabled actors, characters and individuals in all types of programming – from soaps, children’s programming and reality TV. We hope other broadcasters will follow BBC Three’s lead, and continue to show the positive disabled role models and talent that exists in Britain today.”
Philip Connolly, Policy Manager, Disability Rights UK said: “BBC Three are to be congratulated for their television series on disabled people. The programmes took the inspiring everyday hero quality of many disabled people’s lives and connected it to the TV viewers own needs to escape from humdrum routines.”
Press coverage has also been enthusiastic, a selection of which we’ve collated below, along with appreciation on Facebook. .
Don’t Take My Baby
The Guardian: “It balances sweetness and filthy humour (some of the only laughs come from sex jokes) and – helped by the statistics that flash up on the credits – gives a powerful insight into disability stigma in modern Britain. Forty minutes in provides one of the most painful, nuanced scenes I’ve viewed in a while. Watch it. And stay for the rest of the season.”
What’s on TV: “Let’s hope the rest of this BBC season can match the standard set by this gripping drama.”
Radio Times: “It’s an impressively intelligent, even-handed drama, tackling the issue with humour and warmth, while never patronising disability, nor ignoring its harsh realities.”
Daily Telegraph: It is estimated that social services will make 11,000 decisions a year about whether disabled parents can keep their newborn babies. The fiendish complications of this stark and upsetting statistic were unpicked in Don’t Take My Baby(BBC Three), a perceptive and well-judged drama.
The World’s Worst Place to be Disabled?
The Times: “It is a programme that burns with rage and disbelief.”
The Unbreakables
Mirror online: “BBC Three's Defying the Label season has struck again and tonight's The Unbreakables: Life & Love On Disability Campus could be the best part yet.”
The Times: “This season of films about disability among young people on BBC Three has been a revelation, with an honesty and a life-enhancing value. The quality of programmes has been so high, in fact, that it is almost a relief to find one that is less sharply focussed that the others - at least it gives you a chance to draw breath.”
The Mirror: “BBC Three's most eye-opening and heart-warming documentary yet.”
The Guardian: “The message about what others too often take for granted is worth restating: here it's delivered with a lightness of touch.”
Sunday Times Choice: “We reach the end of this smart documentary series about a British college dedicated to giving its students a more independent life despite physical impairments” “and these films have skilfully conveyed a sense of this harrowing yet thrilling time in young lives.”
Radio Times: “The brilliance of The Unbreakables is that it isn’t trying to do anything except give National Star’s students the chance to speak for themselves”
The Ugly Face of Disability Hate Crime
The Times: Good television changes your mind. Great television changes how you think. The Ugly Face of Disability Hate Crime was great television. It rewired my head as I was watching it.
Jon Jacob is Editor of the About the BBC Blog
- Watch the programmes from the Defying the Label season on the BBC Three website.
- Read BBC Three Controller Damian Kavanagh's blog post with the latest updates on how we're moving BBC Three online.
