Originally published on Independent Australia on 2 December 2025
As Australia marks International Day of People with Disabilities, advocates call for a shift from “inspiration” tropes toward authentic disability narratives that reflect genuine inclusion, writes Melissa Marsden.
INTERNATIONAL DAY of People with Disabilities is thrust into the public discourse today, 2 December.
The theme in 2025 is Fostering Disability Inclusive Societies for Advancing Social Progress.
But when advancing social progress is the destination, how can we practically foster disability inclusive societies?
In Australia, we claim to be striving for more people with disability in leadership roles as a “priority” of Australia’s Disability Strategy 2021-2031.
But what happens when a person with a disability succeeds, and what happens along the journey, are often represented by the media in very different ways.
Increasingly, inspiration porn is being utilised in overcoming narratives where what is valued by able-bodied society is used as a performative spectacle by people with disabilities.
Inspiration porn is an image of a person with visible signs of impairment who is performing a physical activity, preferably displaying signs of physical prowess, accompanied by a caption that directs the viewer to be inspired by the image in question.
One reason for the use of inspiration porn is the goal of empowerment. However, while society as a whole should be empowered, the discourse for people with disabilities is often laced with assumptions.
Despite the frequent use of discourses of empowerment in Paralympic narratives, they have conventionally been associated with the generalised assumption that athletes who participate in the Paralympics and the groups they supposedly represent (“the disabled”) are disempowered.
In 2022, Australian tennis player and Paralympian Dylan Alcott was named Australian of the Year.
In his rousing speech, he said that his goal was to “change perceptions so people with disability live the lives that they deserve to live”.
However, he also discussed why he wanted to change those perceptions.
Alcott reflects:
I used to hate having a disability. I hated it so much, I hated being different and I didn’t want to be here anymore.
Whenever I turned on the TV, or the radio or the newspaper, I never saw anybody like me.
And whenever I did, it was a road safety ad where someone drink drives, has a car accident and what’s the next scene? Someone like me in tears because their life was over.
And I thought to myself, ‘that’s not my life’, but I believed that was going to be my life.
And so he motivated himself to challenge that stereotype, empowered by Paralympic athletes who came before him.
The super cripple is an intersecting media frame, where news stories depict disabled people “overcoming” their disabilities to live regular (or “normal”) lives.
When people with disabilities are represented as “overcoming” their disabilities, it creates the illusion that society is becoming more inclusive.
Overcoming narratives are not limited to physical impairment but also to narratives where people with disabilities overcome the disabling attitudes of society.
These narratives, when believed and embedded within public discourse, suggest society is becoming more inclusive.
If Paralympians can move from the marginalised to the mainstream, then that means society must be willing to engage with people with disabilities — doesn’t it?
Because if people with disabilities can overcome their impairments to live productive, successful lives, they may then be welcomed into the fold of a so-called mainstream society.
This creates a tension where people with disabilities must seek the approval of able-bodied society for their goals, achievements and needs to be deemed worthy.
And the cycle begins again.
Melissa Marsden is a freelance journalist and PhD candidate at Curtin University. You can follow Melissa on Twitter @MelMarsden96, on Bluesky @melissamarsdenphd or via Melissa’s website, Framing the Narrative.