Disability Takes the Stage on American Idol

The Ratings Powerhouse Reality Show Could Bring About More Awareness

Apr 8, 2009 Megan Drummond

With the success of a legally blind contestant on the country's biggest reality show, young people could be learning about disability awareness without even knowing it.

The hit reality show American Idol has visited disability, in a sense, before. Season 5 featured Elliot Yamin, a young singer who suffered a 90% hearing loss in his right ear due to chronic ear infections as a child and is a Type 1 diabetic. While the hearing loss is a disability, it is an invisible disability. It is not immediately discernible upon first glance, such as a wheelchair, a walker or a cane would be.

Awareness Through Television

This season, the ratings powerhouse features another talented young singer with a very visible disability. Twenty-three-year-old Scott MacIntyre was born almost completely blind. Because he could not see the keys, Scott began playing piano by ear at the age of three. He has since been classically trained on piano and has won awards for vocal performance, composition and piano. Among his many accolades, Scott graduated from Arizona State University at the age of nineteen. Whether it is intentional or not, Scott MacIntyre is now bringing a measure of disability awareness to millions of young people through his appearance on American Idol.

Though blindness is not as visible a disability as quadriplegia or spina bifida, for example, it is more noticeable than hearing loss. This is mainly because of the lack of movement of the eyes. For this reason, many people have vilified Idol host Ryan Seacrest for attempting to high-five the singer after his audition in Phoenix, AZ. In Scott’s own words in defense of Seacrest, “I'm the last person that would ever be offended by that, and I thought it was so funny, because it's happened to me my whole life. People try to wave to me and I don't see it, or they try to high-five me.“

Reality (TV) of Disability

Disability on reality TV is nothing new. Contestants with disabilities ranging from profound hearing loss to leg amputees have appeared on the shows Survivor and Big Brother. Heather Mills, a below-the-knee amputee, appeared on Season 4 of Dancing With the Stars. The reality show contestant with the most visible disability was Carlana Stone, who appeared on Oprah’s Big Give in the spring of 2008. Carlana became a paraplegic at age seventeen after she and some friends went out for a night of drinking. Everyone but Carlana walked away from the subsequent car accident. Now a successful television producer, Carlana spends her free time trying to dispel the popular public myth that people struck by tragedy are victims all their lives. She also scuba dives, sky dives, is working toward obtaining her pilot’s license and runs her own nonprofit organization. The Courage Community serves as an online networking and support community for injured Iraq war veterans.

Now that disability has hit American Idol, one of the biggest reality shows around, how long can it be before disability hits mainstream television?

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