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“It might not be easy, but it’ll be amazing,” said Jessica Long’s mother at the end of the 60-second Toyota Super Bowl spot. Then the voiceover: “We believe there is hope and strength in all of us.”
All that’s left out is the “even people with disabilities.”
The beautiful, inspirational and heartwarming comments that flooded the internet and social media came in
response to Toyota’s 2021 Super Bowl advertisement featuring Long, a multiple-gold-medal-winning Paralympic swimmer.
However many of us in the disabilities community, particularly those who work in inclusivity, saw the ad through a different lens. If you’re especially keen on disability best practices or how to appropriately share the stories of people with disabilities, you may have even rolled your eyes.
We are all too used to this.
In the disabilities community, we refer to ads like this as “inspiration porn.” A term coined by late disability advocate, comedian and Ted Talk speaker Stella Young, it is the portrayal of persons with disabilities as inspirational solely—or in part—on the basis of their disability.
This is objectifying and not representative of the community. People with disabilities are not all inspirational. We are ordinary people who have struggles like everyone else. Most of us are not Jessica Long. The emphasis
at the end of the ad, on Long’s mother moving forward with the adoption despite the fact that it “might not be easy,” is an example of “saviorism,” the paternalistic urge to save someone from their own situation. It takes the focus off of the person and puts it on the disability.
A good measure to check whether you are truly being inclusive or whether you are just creating inspiration porn is to take a step back and ask yourself, “Does this ad still work if I replace the person with disabilities with a person of color, a woman or a member of the LGBTQ community?” Would the Jessica Long ad have made it to air if the woman on the phone instead warned Jessica’s mother that the baby would be Black and have a more difficult life here in the U.S. because of it? Most people would find that offensive. If the entire ad hinges on the subject having a disability, nine times out of 10 it is inspiration porn. And while advertisers may have the best intentions, they are inadvertently damaging the perception of people with disabilities.
While I appreciate Toyota’s good intentions, this ad missed the mark. There’s a saying in our community: “Nothing about us, without us.” It’s important to involve people with lived experience at every stage of the creative process, from ideation to copywriting, art direction and postproduction. Showing a person with disabilities in a 2021 Super Bowl ad is a step in the right direction, but that alone does not make the ad inclusive.
