skins disability

Representation of disability – Skins

This clip begins with 3 dancers showing their friend, Tony, their dance routine. One dancer is called Maxi. Tony seems very depressed – he has forgotten everything he knows in an accident. Maxi and Tony leave together, to go home. They travel on the bus where Tony seems scared, then meet some young girls on the way home, who Maxi knows. At Maxi’s home, they have dinner with Maxi’s mum, who Tony does not remember. Tony’s mum is also at home, and she seems very stressed, while talking with her daughter.

The dance routine is significant, as the dancers are physically able and move in every way possible, stretching and jumping. We see the whole routine, and then we see Tony. It’s a direct contrast between their capability and movement, and his disability, the dancing almost showing what Tony cannot do. The editing also helps to show this, switching frames quickly, to make the dancers movement look faster. During the dance sequence, the camera shoots from close ups, and dynamic angles, which further emphasises their movement. The lighting furthermore helps to show this, as the dancers are in the light, while Tony sits on his own, in the dark – emphasising his isolation and further connoting his disability and that he is ‘in the dark’, which make links to his disability – he has forgotten all the things he knew before.
The music in the scene changes from slow to fast, emphasising the dancers ability to do so many different things.
Tony is also sitting very rigidly, to greatly emphasise the contrast between the dancers ability and Tony’s disability, their curvy movements an almost opposite to his straightness.
It is also significant that Maxi is looking after Tony. He has to take Tony to his daily activities – he doesn’t have enough time to give 100%, an issue when concerning disability. However, we see they are friends and Maxi looks after Tony, as he shortens his name, and when Tony has a moment of panic, we see him cling to Maxi.
In the scene with the young girls, we see one ask if he is ‘mental’. This represents a prejudice to disabled people, by the girls using the derogatory term. It also helps to show that his disability is very clear and noticeable to people, as the girls have picked up on it after talking to him for a short time – emphasising the extent of his disability.
However, he is able to talk to the girls, talking far more than he has in the extract so far, showing us some of his character, that he is very comfortable talking to girls and that his disability has not effected what he is best at too badly. The lighting helps to emphasise this, as it is very light – a sunny day, and this directly contrasts to the darkness of the previous dance scene. The lighting signifies the getting better and getting worse of his disability, almost like pathetic fallacy, and this continues into the next scene, where they eat dinner with Maxi’s mum. We learn that Tony and Maxi’s mum knew each other previously, however Tony says how he doesn’t know her. The lighting has gone back to dull and slightly dark, showing another deterioration. Everything in this scene shows his disability in normal life. Firstly we see Maxi wiping his mouth of food, emphasising his disability with a close up. Then we hear Maxi cutting his food, showing how he cannot cut his own food, which is a standard thing to be able to do. There is no sound apart from the cutting.
The next scene shows us how Tony’s disability has effected his family. His mum is obviously devastated. In the next scene, we see her sitting on the toilet, staring into space. She becomes frustrated at things that remind her of disability – the disabled-friendly toilet and an alarm system. The lighting is dark, which links to the other scenes.