Playing Disability for Laughs

When we think of television characters with disabilities, it seems like the majority of them are on dramas. Locke from Lost, Dr. House from House, Tyrion from Game of Thrones, Jason Street from Friday Night Lights… But what about comedies? I feel like sitcoms have long shied away from disability (because disability is too dramatic to be used in a funny show, right?), but I’ve noticed a definite uptick in the recurrence of disabled characters recently, and I’m here to talk about three of my favourite sitcoms: Mom, The Big Bang Theory and Friends (okay, a single episode of Friends, but I couldn’t pass up the chance of talking about it!)

Don’t tell me what I can’t do!

If you recognize John Locke’s signature line from Lost, welcome! If you haven’t seen the series, I leave it up to you to decide whether you want to read an article about its resident disabled character. If you’re planning on watching it… well, do I really need to warn you that this article will contain spoilers?

And if you don’t know what Lost is, what rock have you been living under?

I recently decided to rewatch Lost, which I hadn’t done since it first aired. When I first saw it, I wasn’t disabled, so the Locke character, his personal story and his wheelchair didn’t mean anything special to me; they were just another story to be told in flashbacks and flash-sideways. This year, though, I am disabled, and as a consequence I paid much more attention to that character’s particular path on the show.