By Jessica • 15 years ago

Parents complain about disabled TV show host


There’s a really disturbing campaign of hate being directed at Cerrie Burnell, a host of the children’s television show CBeebies, who was born missing the lower section of her right arm.

“Is it just me, or does anyone else think the new woman presenter on CBeebies may scare the kids because of her disability?” wrote one adult on the CBeebies website. Other adults claimed that their children were asking difficult questions as a result. “I didn’t want to let my children watch the filler bits on The Bedtime Hour last night because I know it would have played on my eldest daughter’s mind and possibly caused sleep problems,” said one message. The BBC received nine other complaints by phone.

Charming. In fact, some of the comments were so disturbing, they had to be removed from the site. WTF is wrong with these parents?
Burnell responded recently, saying that the negative comments “are indicative of a wider problem of disabled representation in the media as a whole, which is why it’s so important for there to be more disabled role models in every area of the media.”
Ampersand nails it:

Even if a child is disturbed by seeing Burnell’s arm, so what? It’s up to the parents to explain to the child that all people are different — not up to the BBC to fire their host so that parents are spared having to parent their children.
That said, I think we know the core issue here isn’t frightened children — it’s prejudiced adults.

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