Disability- 'A touch of Frost'

I have been looking at issues around the way in which disability is represented in TV Dramas. Representation of social groups in our thriller opening is something we need to take some informed decisions about. If we are going to, for example, depict somebody with a condition attached to mental health or a personality disorder then we will need to research this to avoid clichéd or offensive stereotyping.


After watching a past exam clip of 'A touch of frost' we was asked to analyse the clip and explain how TV has represented disability in this show, I wrote my paragraph and afterwards someone in my class read through it to see if anything needed improving or added, the following is my paragraph and the green in the extra added by someone else...

In the interrogation scene, the use of a shot, reverse shot is used to show each character while they’re having a conversation; within these shots at the beginning Billy (the young boy with Down syndrome) is shown using a mid-shot (with a slight high shot to show him as vulnerable) which always had his dad in the background shot. This could be because his dad feels like Billy can’t support himself so he has to be behind him, this gives the idea that the show is representing people who have Down syndrome are needy and dependent on other people. Also in this scene, the use of sound/ dialogue is used as Frost when speaking to Billy speaks quietly and slowly(and talking down to him as if he’s a child) or talks through Billy to his father this suggests he thinks people with disabilities aren’t smart and can’t speak or do anything for themselves. Furthermore could imply he only wants to speak to Billy when necessary, therefore inferring how the detective wants segregate himself from people with disabilities as much as possible. However, as the scene progresses Billy starts to get angry as the detective (Frost) keeps pushing him and as he’s getting angry the use of a mid-shot with Billy’s dad in the background changes to a close-up of Billy as he stands his ground and then also he starts speaking louder and repeating himself to make it clear he can speak for himself and he’s independent not stupid (as he’s projected). This contradicts the stereotype which was portrayed at the beginning of the scene, which could suggest people with disabilities are overly smothered.

Also the use of mise-en-scene is used to show a possible stereotype of disability, even though we have seen Billy in the first clip getting tackled the idea of Billy being dirty and covered in filth could be a semic code for how people not physically but mentally believe that people who have a disability are dirty and aren’t clean because they aren’t able to clean themselves. Therefore portraying people with disabilities negatively as he’s seen as dark and sinister. Which contrasts to the detectives as he has nice clothes which are bright and white that suggests they’re clean. Therefore implying able people as pure and innocent which is positive. This is showing the contrast between someone who is disabled and someone who is abled as they have a much defined differences to project that people with down-syndrome can’t be normal.

At the beginning of the clip the quote “I didn’t think there was anything strange… about billy” the word ‘strange’ interpreters that as Billy has down-syndrome people don’t see him as normal but irregular and weird which is how they’ve decided to show disability.