Bad Attitudes: An Uninspiring Podcast About Disability

Episode 69: What The Fab Five Missed

May 22, 2023 Laura Stinson Season 3 Episode 14
Bad Attitudes: An Uninspiring Podcast About Disability
Episode 69: What The Fab Five Missed
Show Notes Transcript

Episode 3 of the seventh season of Queer Eye on Netflix featured a disabled "hero" (the show's term for its guests). Yay! But wouldn't it be nice if those with a platform like QE talked more about the issues facing the disabled community at large?

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Email badattitudespod@gmail.com

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Be sure to leave a rating or review wherever you listen!

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TRANSCRIPT OF “WHAT THE FAB FIVE MISSED”

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MALE VO [00:03]
This is Bad Attitudes.

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LAURA [00:20]

Hello friends and strangers! Welcome to another episode of Bad Attitudes: An Uninspiring Podcast about Disability. I’m your host, Laura.

I guess if I had been paying better attention to episode numbers, I would have made THIS the episode about sex.

Today’s episode is sponsored by Yael Levine. Thank you, Yael!

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As always, I want to remind you that disability is not a monolith. My experience as a disabled person is going to be different from the experiences of other disabled people. I am one voice for the disabled community but I am not the only voice.

[01:49]
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Not gonna lie, I kinda love Queer Eye on Netflix. I didn’t get into it until season 6, when Miranda Lambert recorded the song, “Y’all Means All” for the theme of that season. But then I binged all the seasons. I never enjoyed the original version. I found those guys off-putting, but the current Fab Five are very inviting.

Season 7 dropped recently, and the third episode featured a young man called Speedy who was in a car accident in 2020 at the age of 18. The accident killed his mother and aunt and left him paralyzed from the chest down. Speedy has used a wheelchair since.

Let’s address the elephant in the room first. Thank GOD they told the story of how Speedy actually got his nickname because the irony of a wheelchair user being called Speedy is THICK. I spent the whole episode questioning his decision to continue being called Speedy even though the name has nothing to do with his accident or his wheelchair. That’s just me.

I’m sure most of you are familiar with the premise of Queer Eye. A group of five LGBTQIA+ individuals descend on a city for several weeks and in each episode, they assist a chosen “hero” in the areas of fashion, self-care, food, housing, and culture to help them improve their lives. 

I really want to focus on the housing aspect of this episode, which is the purview of Bobby Berk. Normally, Bobby renovates or redecorates areas in a hero’s existing home. For Speedy, however, due to accessibility issues in the apartment where he lived with his small family, Bobby sought out an accessible apartment where Speedy could live independently. On the show, they only showed them visiting two apartments, but we have to assume that staffers behind the scenes investigated multiple options prior to filming. Speedy ultimately ended up with the second apartment.

I was unable to figure out the apartment complex where his new home was, but in New Orleans (where this season takes place), the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $957 a month as of May 2023, according to apartments.com. Thanks to Bobby and his team, the apartment was outfitted with a lot of really helpful accessibility hacks, including smart shades, a roll-in shower, and pull-down shelves in the kitchen cabinets. This is in addition to all the other, more aesthetic modifications made by the Queer Eye team.

Important things of note: We don’t know if Speedy has a paying job. They never mention how he fills his time, other than building his TikTok following. But, according to disabilityapprovalguide.com, the average Social Security disability payment in Louisiana is $1503.93. This number varies based on other assets and so-called “countable” resources. The show also paid one year’s worth of rent upfront, which, using the previous figures, equals up to about $11,500. We also don’t know what kind of arrangement was agreed upon with the apartment complex as to whether Speedy or the show will be charged for reverting the apartment to its original state when he moves out. We also don’t know anything about Speedy’s other expenditures, including medical expenses, of which there are likely to be at least some.

I mention all this because the one thing that concerned me about this episode is that non-disabled people are going to watch it and get an unrealistic idea about what it means to find and pay for accessible housing for the average disabled person. It is not as easy as visiting two apartments to find one that works for your particular accessibility needs. And the average disabled tenant would almost certainly not be allowed to make substantial changes to the apartment, like replacing the entire shower unit with a roll-in shower. Most of what went in to making this apartment really suitable for Speedy is down to the show’s involvement and monetary resources, which I think we all recognize.

Bobby said something during the episode that stuck out. I’m paraphrasing, but basically what he said was that Speedy didn’t have to settle for a place that didn’t meet all his accessibility needs. And while that’s certainly the ideal, it’s definitely not true. Many disabled people DO have to settle for living spaces that don’t fully meet their needs, usually due to financial constraints, or because something that meets their needs simply isn’t available where they live.

As for the hacks like smart shades or the pull-down kitchen shelves, those aren’t cheap either. I priced out how much it would cost for me to add smart shades to the single window in my bedroom, and it was at least a few hundred dollars, going up as the size of the window increased. I’d say the average price was $400 to $500 per shade. Outfitting a whole apartment would cost at least a couple thousand. As for the shelving system in the kitchen? I found a system similar to that used on the show and it ranged from $700 to $900 per unit. Putting those in multiple cabinets? Another several thousand dollars, not even including installation cost.

The point I’m making here is, this episode presented all these amazing systems that would make life so much easier for disabled people, but, generally speaking, WE CAN’T AFFORD THEM. But, because shows like Queer Eye don’t talk about the cost or about the income inequities faced by the disability community, the average non-disabled person is going to assume these are easy for us to get our hands on. And that simply isn’t going to happen.

Queer Eye is meant to be an uplifting show. I understand that talking about how a large number of disabled people live in poverty is going to bring the vibe down. And I understand that the point of the show is to give a handful of deserving people these massive gifts in terms of their wardrobes or their homes in order to thank them or help them. I get it.

But, Queer Eye and its hosts have such a massive platform that I would LOVE for them to tackle and talk about the issues that face disabled people in America. Instead, they talk about surface things. Like, if you’re a wheelchair user, make sure you buy a stove with knobs on the front so you don’t burn yourself reaching across hot burners. Important to know, yes, but not exactly shaking up the status quo.

It doesn’t have to be depressing. I would have appreciated some simple acknowledgement of the fact that disabled people usually don’t have the disposable resources to make a lot of what Bobby accomplished happen. It’s conceivable that the projects completed for the non-disabled heroes could be done by individuals outside of the show, although it would likely take longer to complete, and costs might still be prohibitive.

Anyone who isn’t intimately familiar with disability has NO IDEA how expensive it is to be disabled, but also how hard it is to meet those expenses on income from disability benefits. The average non-disabled person isn’t going to guess that a single pull-down kitchen shelf would cost as much as $900. I certainly didn’t expect it to be that number before I looked into it.

The real problem is that the items that would be so beneficial for a disabled individual’s accessibility aren’t accessible in and of themselves. Due to the cost, for the most part, we cannot access them. Talk about irony being thick. Most of the advancements made to improve the lives of disabled people are out of the reach of the people they’re meant to help.

All that aside, I appreciate that Queer Eye at least shows disabled people living their best lives. They could use a few more (only two in seven seasons) and a disabled woman would be a nice change. So, you know, if you want to nominate me for season 8, I wouldn’t be opposed to it. Then I could raise these concerns with the staff in person.

And, also, I wouldn’t say no to a makeover.

Thanks for listening and I’ll talk to you in the next one.

[10:53]
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