How's Your News?

Like many kids, I grew up making fun of people with mental disabilities. I frequently impersonated the intellectually disabled and threw around the word “retarded” to indicate that I disapproved of something. (“Gay” is the new “retarded,” I reckon.) I did this in spite of actually knowing intellectually disabled kids. In fact, I shared an art table with two peers with Down syndrome and I was charged with making sure they didn’t eat the paste. Their affinity for glue gorging despite reprimand even inspired me to secretly sample a bit once. One of these students, Ben, was my friend outside of school, too. On one occasion, Ben came over to my house and we had a snack. From that point forward, I never drank out of the red cup that he had used again (though I did let my sister drink from it) because I was afraid of catching “retarded,” which just goes to show that I might have already had it.

Looking back, I recognize that my ignorance stemmed from a lack of understanding. Currently, I try not to use the R-word and I have a couple of friends that work for an organization that enhances and creates social opportunities for the intellectually disabled. Because of my relationships with people in the organization, I’ve often thought about involving myself with the cause, but continually shy away. I’ve never shared my reason why, because, if not awful, it’s certainly ridiculous: People with mental disabilities make me cry.

I’m not a super emotional person or anything, but I really do cry. Just the other day, I listened to the second story on an old This American Life episode that surprisingly got the tears running. Lately, I’ve been trying to challenge this reaction and I think I finally figured out why that is: as someone who doesn’t have regular interactions with the intellectually disabled, my main perspective stems from media representations. And when they’re not offensive, most stories involving mentally disabled characters are intensely melodramatic. Consider films like Forrest Gump, I Am Sam, Praying with Lior, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, and The Other Sister (with the world’s most inappropriate theme song): they’re all tearjerkers, either because they’re utterly catastrophic or beautifully inspirational in showing an intellectually challenged individual persevering.

So while it’s very Hollywoodesque to surround the intellectually disabled with great tales of tragedy and triumph, it doesn’t allow for any sense of normalcy, which is why I’m very appreciative for MTV’s new show How’s Your News?

How’s Your News? follows a group of disabled adults traveling across the country to interview celebrities and common folk alike. The series has received some commendation, but also a lot of flak. The common criticism is that it’s exploitive to take disabled individuals to create a comedy show. Given MTV’s reputation, I understand the concern, but I find the program remarkably not exploitive. What’s exploitive is repeatedly presenting disabled people as something worth crying about.

What I love about the show is that it’s a platform to showcase intellectually disabled people without much fanfare. The cast is real and normal. Most importantly, it doesn’t make me want to cry. It does provoke me to laugh, but I feel pretty confident that most of the time I’m laughing with them. It doesn’t champion them as heroes or something extraordinary, but rather genuine, affable people who are a part of society. It demonstrates how people can have (relatively) normal interactions with disabled people rather than going out of their way to ignore them like we are essentially taught to do. Let’s face it: the interviews the cast members conduct are not the hardest hitting best bits of journalism you’ll see, that’s just not realistic. At the same time, they’re hardly the worst examples of that either (I’m looking at you, Barbara Walters). They are, however, entertaining, revealing, and refreshingly honest.

In case it provides any comfort, How’s Your News? has been around way before MTV got involved. I first learned of How’s Your News? on a different This American Life episode a couple of years ago. If you’d like some background on the concept, I recommend listening to it. (Yes, it made me mist up the first time I heard it, fortunately the television show doesn’t focus on the uplifting back story.)

Anyway, I’d like to recommend the show to you, you can watch the first segment of the premiere episode here:

How's Your News? - MTV Shows

You can find all of the episodes in their entirety at MTV.com. I’ve watched the first three and rather than leaving me feeling sad, I want to hang out with these people, I think it’d be a fun time. In not taking a sensationalist route, How’s Your News? becomes an important piece of media, advocacy that springs from not tugging at your heartstrings.