By: Rosemary Noelke
Introduction
On March 14th, 2024, CoorDown, the Italian National Coordination of Down Syndrome, published a video campaign on YouTube for World Down Syndrome Day titled “ASSUME THAT I CAN.” The video was also shared on TikTok by the National Down Syndrome Society, a partner of CoorDown, on the same date and currently has 31 million views. While the group represented in the campaign is those with Down syndrome, the messages within the video can also represent the disabled community as a whole. This campaign was designed as a call to action to end the stereotypes that limit the potential of individuals with Down syndrome.
The video challenges understandings of ‘difference,’ depicting disabled people as capable of performing the same tasks as their able-bodied counterparts, deconstructing ableist stereotypes. As Stuart Hall explains in The Spectacle of the Other, “stereotyping reduces, essentializes, naturalizes and fixes difference” (Hall, 1997, p. 258). Patricia Hill Collins uses the term ‘controlling images’ to describe the role of stereotypes in justifying the maltreatment of marginalized people (Collins, 2000). Therefore, stereotyping is a practice of symbolic power through representational practices that reflect and reinforce gross power inequalities (Hall, 1997).
The Video
The video immediately captures the viewers’ attention as a young woman with Down syndrome states, “Hey, bartender. You assume that I cannot drink a Margarita, so you don’t serve me a margarita. So I don’t drink a margarita. Your assumption becomes a reality” (CoorDown, 2024, 0:01). Using this format, the woman continues to list examples of assumptions neurotypical people make about those with Down syndrome, such as the inability to learn Shakespeare in school. Following these examples, a soda bottle shatters on the screen as she
states, “If all your assumptions become reality…then assume I can drink a margarita, so you serve me a margarita, so then I drink a margarita” (0:38). The video then revisits the earlier examples with this new perspective, including a scene of her standing on a desk reciting Shakespeare and exclaiming, “So I learn fucking Shakespeare… You assumed I couldn’t swear, right?” (1:03). The woman continues to challenge the initial assumptions from the beginning of the video while adding new examples, including having sex and partying. In the video’s final message, the woman is joined by other adults with Down syndrome as she states, “Assume that I can, so maybe I will” (1:16).
Positive Representations
Disability representation often portrays an “inspiration porn” or “supercrip” narrative, which frames ordinary activities as extraordinary when disabled individuals perform them (Peters, 2024). This representation uses terms such as “superhuman” to inspire able-bodied individuals while dehumanizing disabled people by reducing them to their bodily functions. As Hall explains, this reduction of individuals to their bodies is a fetishistic and voyeuristic behaviour that signifies ‘otherness’ (265). By framing activities like drinking a margarita as standard, the campaign video critiques “inspiration porn” by portraying these actions as ordinary rather than extraordinary or superhuman, thereby neutralizing disability.
Stereotyping sets boundaries between ‘us’ and ‘them,’ binding ‘normal’ people into an ‘imagined community’ and sending ‘Others’ into symbolic exile (Hall, 1997). As Hall illustrates, the controlling image of infantilization justified colonial missions by portraying Black people as helpless, depriving them of authority, and treating them as children (1997). The campaign video challenges infantilization tropes by associating disabled people with actions categorized as adult-like. For example, the woman swears and speaks about having sex, drinking alcohol, and living independently. As a result, disabled people are represented as mature, cognisant, and independent adults who enjoy the same activities as able-bodied and neurotypical adults.
In the workplace, ableist infantilizing stereotypes manifest in discriminatory hiring practices, resulting in limited job opportunities and career advancement. In schools, contained classrooms often foster a self-fulfilling prophecy, where teachers who believe a student cannot understand a concept do not invest in teaching it, ultimately limiting the student’s educational growth (Sands, 2024). Additionally, the use of ‘baby voice’ when communicating with disabled individuals is a product of infantilizing controlled images (Silverman, 2020). The campaign video thus disrupts the societal barriers that uphold these damaging and limiting stereotypes.
Negative Representations
Through examples, such as “assume that I can get that job”(1:08), the video centre work as a measurement of value, emulating the capitalist and colonial systems that socially constructed disability. As Greech explains, the colonial economization of the body created a new dynamic of oppressive power in which people were stratified based on their abilities to comply with the physical demands of being a capitalist worker (2015). The racialized body became a site for justifying racial hierarchies, using differences in the body to naturalize racial differences in popular representations (Hall, 1997). The value attached to working in the video contributes to the colonial hierarchical system, which upholds this negative representation of disabled people.
The video also compares learning Shakespeare to “Old MacDonald Had a Farm,” signifying the latter as inferior (0:31). This comparison attaches worth to the satisfaction of neurotypical ideals and ignores the spectrum of disability. While challenging the notion that disabled people are incapable, this emphasis on the ability to perform a particular task can contribute to the devaluation of disabled people who are unable to meet this expectation. It is essential to convey that worth should not be determined by one’s ability, as this value system creates and reinforces the controlled images. As Hall explains, reversing a stereotype does not unlock the complex dynamics of power and subordination historically and culturally constructing identities but maintains its binary structure (1997).
The debate around person-first language illustrates this complexity of representation. While person-first language, such as ‘person with autism,’ aims to separate the individual from their disability, many disabled people prefer identity-first language, like ‘autistic person,’ which acknowledges their disability as an integral part of their identity (Brown, 2011). To many, person-first language adds a negative or taboo connotation to disability, contributing to inferiorizing tropes.
References
Brown, L. (2011). The Significance of Semantics: Person-First Language: Why It Matters. Autistichoya.
https://www.autistichoya.com/2011/08/significance-of-semantics-person-first.html
CoorDown. (2024). About Us. CoorDown ODV. https://www.coordown.it/en/about-us/
CoorDown. (2024). Assume that I can [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/9HpLhxMFJR8?si=lGw1iS2PznOa-Fsb
Sands, A. (2024). Assume that I can. Down Syndrome International. https://www.ds-int.org/blog/assume-that-i-can
Grech, S. (2015). Decolonising Eurocentric disability studies: Why colonialism matters in the disability and global South debate. Social Identities, 21(1), 6–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504630.2014.995347
Hall, S. (1997). The spectacle of the ‘Other‘. In S. Hall (Ed.), Representation: Cultural representations and signifying practices (pp. 223–290). Sage.
Hill Collins, P. (2000). Mammies, matriarchs, and other controlling images. In Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment (pp. 69–96). Routledge.
Silverman, A. (2020). Skip the Special Voice, Please. Disability Wisdom Consulting. https://www.disabilitywisdom.com/2020/05/15/skip-the-special-voice-please/
Rosemary Noelke 