While disability has historically been depicted in problematic ways in television, film, and print media, more balanced and progressive cultural representations are arguably emerging. However, few studies address how disabled people and their families (e.g., parents) encounter, and make sense of, media configurations ostensibly designed to promote a more positive and visible image of living with disability. Drawing upon interviews with parents of children with Down's syndrome in the United Kingdom, I sketch out how they feel about depictions that, arguably, depart from hurtful historical narratives of disability as tragic and pitiable. Parents praise, and mostly embrace, recent portrayals of people with Down's syndrome in media outputs. At the same time, they raise concerns around tokenism, stereotyping, focusing upon “exceptional” people, and fueling sanitized accounts which deny, or at least obscure, the harsh lived realities for many parents of disabled children. I conclude by arguing that while parents largely applaud and welcome positive public narratives, they also fear that such representations threaten to gloss over the pervasive mistreatment, disregard, and disenfranchisement of disabled people and their families.

中文翻译：

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“媒体喜欢正在发生的事情的人造版本”：唐氏综合症的媒体（错误）表述

虽然历史上在电视、电影和印刷媒体中以有问题的方式描述残疾，但可以说正在出现更平衡和进步的文化表现形式。然而，很少有研究涉及残疾人及其家人（例如，父母）如何遇到并理解表面上旨在促进更积极和更明显的残疾生活形象的媒体配置。通过对英国患有唐氏综合症儿童的父母的采访，我勾勒出他们对那些可以说与残疾的悲惨和可怜的伤人历史叙述背道而驰的描述的感受。父母们赞扬，并且大多接受媒体输出中最近对唐氏综合症患者的描述。与此同时，他们提出了对象征主义、刻板印象、关注“特殊”人的担忧，并助长了那些否认或至少掩盖了许多残疾儿童父母的严酷生活现实的净化账户。最后我认为，虽然父母在很大程度上赞赏并欢迎积极的公开叙述，但他们也担心这种陈述有可能掩盖对残疾人及其家人普遍存在的虐待、漠视和剥夺权利。