02 April 2007

I was recently watching an episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show (and when I say that I saw it recently, remember that here in the UK we get the show about 6 weeks behind it's original US air date) where Ellen was interviewing Jennifer Love Hewitt about Ghost Whisperer and the strange hauntings they've really experienced on the set of the show.

I have a theory about the ghosts haunting the show: I think the on set hauntings are a disability rights protest by people who are also now experiencing Spectral Intangibility Syndrome.

We've now seen 2 episodes where the ghost of the episode was disabled. First we had a ghost with autism, then a ghost with muscular dystrophy.

In the episode with the autistic ghost, Melinda explains that "we're all perfect when we step into the light." And, apparently, if you're autistic you can't be perfect the way you are. Before you can step fully into the light you have to stop stimming and make eye contact with the psychic who's done you a favour by reuniting your girlfriend with her mother.

Then there was the guy with Muscular Dystrophy who died aged 17. While he was alive, he felt he couldn't snog the pretty girl at school because "oh, I'm in a wheelchair!"

After death he masters the art of possession. He thinks that in the body of a recently deceased, but non-disabled, corpse he's in with a much better shot. Despite the rigor mortice and smell of rotting and all.

Now do you get why I'm convinced the ghosts must be those of ex-persons that the writers would describe as imperfect?

I started a discussion about the show and it's representation of dead disabled people on a messageboard, and someone replied:

"itd be a downer if on top of like, dying, i had to spend eternity with legs i had no idea what to do with. normal person legs that is."


But the show's writers don't seem to get that. They just think that corpses are sexier than cripples. Hmmmm.... Necrophilia.

OK, I mean, I know I'm not attractive, but that's nothing to do with my impairment - I'm just ugly. But even to people who do find the bent bones to be a turn off, I'd still like to think I'm sexier than a non-disabled blue body being eaten by maggots.

On a slightly random tangent, I once had a dream where I was a ghost, and I tried to go to the cinema. Being invisible, no-one would notice that I'd snuck in without a ticket. The only problem was that being a ghost I couldn't attract anyone's attention to get them to open the wheelchair accessible door - so no free movie for me.

I wish the Ghost Whisperer ghosts well with their demonstration. Viva la... oh, erm... perhaps not "viva", hey?