Box-Ticking Exercise is the new monthly(-ish) column by Melissa Parker in which she dissects ableism and the portrayal of disability in tv, film and media. Being M, this is of course all done with her pen as a scalpel.
The silence pulls you in at the moment the camera lingers on a distressed child. Then images of disabled children in despair are artfully, soullessly, woven and twisted around the generically insincere Coldplay song “Fix You”, breaking the accidental, fleeting moment of compassion.
This is Children in Need, the yearly telethon for disabled children.
