A database of news and information about people with disabilities and disability issues...
Copyright statement: Unless otherwise stated, all posts on this blog continue to be the property of the original author/publication/Web site, which can be found via the link at the beginning of each post.
Wales' most successful Paralympian is to make her animated TV debut – playing a wheelchair-bound cheetah who helps a rabbit left out of school sport.
In her first episode on children’s series Hana’s Helpline, Cardiff-born athlete Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson plays the part of Rita Cheetah, a champion wheelchair athlete who comes to the assistance of a disabled rabbit called Rhian.
The show, made by Butetown-based Calon TV, is based around an agony aunt duck called Hana. The episode, Record Breaking Rhian, will be broadcast on Five Milkshake at 6.30am on Friday. S4C is also screening the Welsh version Holi Hana.
Tanni, who retired from competitive sport last year after winning 11 Olympic gold medals and six London Marathons, said: “The way the programme handles the issue is perfect. The message is positive and it doesn’t patronise. And Ernie the eagle’s attitude that Rhian can’t do PE because she’s in a wheelchair is also common.”
Since it was first launched in April 2007, Hana’s Helpline has been watched by more than 3.4 million viewers and has won two major animation awards.
Beth Haller, Ph.D., is Co-Director of the Global Alliance for Disability in Media and Entertainment (www.gadim.org). A former print journalist, she is a member of the Advisory Board for the National Center on Disability and Journalism (https://ncdj.org/). Haller is Professor Emerita in the Department of Mass Communication at Towson University in Maryland, USA. Haller is co-editor of the 2020 "Routledge Companion to Disability and Media" (with Gerard Goggin of University of Sydney & Katie Ellis of Curtin University, Australia). She is author of "Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media" (Advocado Press, 2010) and the author/editor of Byline of Hope: Collected Newspaper and Magazine Writing of Helen Keller (Advocado Press, 2015). She has been researching disability representation in mass media for 30+ years. She is adjunct faculty in the Disability Studies programs at the City University of New York (CUNY) and the University of Texas-Arlington.
From the South Wales Echo:
