Podcast Co-Hosts Wanted!

So far, I have worked with four fantastic guest hosts who talked with me about disabled characters on TV for the Disability.TV podcast.

Maddy Ruvolo and I compared notes on the paraplegic ex-quarterback Jason Street on Friday Night Lights.

It took two episodes for me and Alice Wong to do justice to the many disabled characters on Game Of Thrones.

Cheryl Green and I cofessed our love-hate relationship with Glee to the podcast listening public.

And next Friday’s show will feature a detailed postmortem on the 2013 remake of Ironside, with co-host Kamilah Proctor.

The podcast is off to a great start, but there are lots more shows I want to talk about, and I’m looking for people to discuss them with me. It’s a pretty simple process. We have a roughly hour-long Skype discussion about the TV show in question and how disabled characters and disability themes play out. Are they stereotypical, groundbreaking, realistic, inaccurate, three-dimensional, flat, cliché, original, uplifting, or revolting ... helpful to the cause, or horrific?

Or, more simply, do you like the show and its disability depictions or not?

Here’s a list of shows with disabled characters I plan to cover in upcoming podcast episodes:

Parenthood

Sherlock

Red Band Society

Breaking Bad

Star Trek ... selected episodes of any or all of the series

American Horror Story: Freak Show

The West Wing

Life Goes On

I Claudius

Push Girls

Deadwood

Carnivale

Derek

My Gimpy Life

Little People, Big World

Let me know if you are interested in any of these shows, and if you might be willing to co-host the podcast with me. My email address is: apulrang@icloud.com.

Employment Talk

Disabled Girls Talk Episode 2: Employment

Maddy Ruvolo and Emily Ladau - October 20, 2014

Maddy Ruvolo and Emily Ladau discuss what it’s really like for young disabled people to be looking for work right now. They are joined by Maria Town, of the Youth Policy Team at the Office of Disability Employment Policy and the CP Shoes blog and Twitter feed.

Maddy, Emily, and Maria are realistic about the dire employment rates and barriers to improvement, without being too depressing. Best of all, they go way beyond the usual bullet points and problematic clichés about disability and employment … employers just need to “look past” our disabilities … they should hire us because we’ll be more loyal than non-disabled workers … we’re all totally ready to work and we never have any problems as long as we’re given a chance.

They talk about transportation barriers, how important those “first jobs” are for teens with disabilities, and the fact that sometimes, our disabilities really do interfere with our ability to work to full our full capacity.

This podcast is well worth a listen. I can’t wait to hear their next episode!