check off out this commercial put together by Paralympic organizers who are trying very heavily to cast the Games and its athlete in a completely young light . Rather than framing Paralympians as being somehow deficient or short , they ’re now being portray as elect athletes endowed with superhuman capacities .
At the same time , however , there are some groups who are taking exclusion to this plan of attack , quetch that Paralympians are being exploit in what has become nothing more than a modern freakshow .
The Paralympics officially got underway yesterday surveil aspectacular opening ceremonieswhichfeatured the creation ’s “ most famous disabled person , ” Stephen Hawking . And if the initiative to these Games are to be of any denotation , the Paralympics ai n’t what they used to be .
Alternative sports
Indeed , organizers have good reason to think that spectator will be “ stunned by the superhumans ” of the Paralympics . The Games have amount a long way of life since their humble source when they were called “ Hospital Games ” , a position for injured World War II veterans to compete and mesh in meaningful activities .
And indeed , as Oscar Pistorius has shown , Paralympians are bulge to cross the increasingly foggy line that differentiate “ normal ” athletes from so - holler “ handicapped ” athletes . As of today ( August 30 , 2012 ) , Pistorius has become the first person to compete at both the Olympics and Paralympics — a remarkable accomplishment that will sure as shooting be noted in the story books .
And it ’s difficult to hump what the hereafter will hold up for Pisorius and standardised jock . Given the rate of technical approach , it ’s quite conceivable that Paralympians will start to do at levels even well than normal run jock .
A freak constituent ?
But not everyone agrees .
According to Danielle Peers , a former Paralympian bronze medalist and women ’s wheelchair basketball creation champion , the Games are nothing more than an offshoot of the junky show of the nineteenth Century . As a result , Peers indicate that the Paralympics are a “ spectacle of curiosity ” that is continually reinforcing notions of disability .
Writing in the August 2012 edition of theJournal of Sport & Social Issues , Peersmade the casethat Paralympic PDA have bomb to to take full reward of the opportunity that the Games are presenting . She feel that they ’re promote the idea that impairment is a tragic trouble in masses ’s body , rather than a structural trouble in today ’s society .
match also believe that at the Paralympics , handicap and impairments are foregrounded more than athletic skill .
“ If you look at books about the Paralympics , they have all these pictures of athletes and do n’t name any of them , ” Peers stated through arelease , claiming that the information is all about organizer . “ You ca n’t imagine that existing in the Olympic context of use , but in the context of the histories they secernate about the Paralympics , it ’s irrelevant who jock are . ”
Moving forward , Peers is hoping to see a decline in organisational paternalism , and greater involvement for athletes to guide the focus of the Games itself . “ It ’s only through piece of writing and thinking critically that we have a hope of making change for the better , ” she said .
Given the late hyperbolic campaign by Paralympic organiser to promote their athletes as being virtually superhuman , it ’s unclouded that change are coming . Whether or not the Paralympics are any more or less exploitative than the Olympics remains an open question — as does the proceeds of the Games itself being a kind of modern junky show for the masses .
All this being said , it ’s decipherable that Paralympians are dramatically changing the means we catch handicap — more and more , these athlete are superhumans , rather than “ handicapped people . ”
Images : Here , here , here .
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