Grotesque Spectacle – Rio Has a Long Way To Go To Become More Accessible

Accessible cities, Accommodation, Disability, Experiences, General accessibility, Museums & Galleries, Outdoor & Adventure, Tourist Attractions, Tours, Transport, Wheelchair users

PinRio is an old city, with dense areas such as the Rocinha favela. Making it accessible is no small ask. Sean Fitzgerald Follow/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND

Tracey J Dickson, University of Canberra; Jorge Knijnik, Western Sydney University, and Simon Darcy, University of Technology Sydney

It was quite a reality check. With one phrase, “Espetáculo grotesco” (“grotesque spectacle”), Portuguese journalist Joaquim Vieira created a major controversy with his denigration of the Paralympic Games.

Through his choice of words, and his throwback to disability as a “freak show”, he highlights the difficulty of moving the discourse and practice from a medical model to a social approach.

The former sees people with disabilities as abnormal, deviant or inferior, with disability a “personal tragedy”. A social approach focuses on the abilities rather than deficits, challenging the disabling environments, attitudes and behaviours of individuals, organisations and societies.

Without this transformation, the vision espoused in the IPC Accessibility Guide to improve host city accessibility and attitudes towards people with disability will remain a distant aspiration rather than a reality.

The Paralympic Games will never be a panacea for the social issues facing a host city [...]

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