SDEF - News Item - Creature Discomforts

You can't help who you fall in love with

New Creature Discomforts characters previewed today

Leonard Cheshire Disability unveils six brand new Creature Discomforts characters online today, ahead of a six week campaign to change attitudes to disability. www.CreatureDiscomforts.org

Disabled people have the same desires and aspirations as non-disabled people, in work, education and relationships. The new animations will challenge people’s low expectations about what disabled people can do.

The new characters are based on the unscripted voices of young disabled people talking about the issues that affect their lives. One animation challenges public perceptions of disabled people, relationships and sex.

It opens with a mouse with a physical impairment saying: “Some people think because you have a disability you should be with someone with a disability. It doesn’t always work like that.” An elephant steps into the frame and kisses the mouse on the head as she says: “You can’t help who you fall in love with.”

The animation cuts to a field full of baby rabbits, with a female rabbit in a wheelchair saying: “Well, they think that if you’re disabled you can’t have a love life.� That’s not true though.� I can have sex!”� [she giggles]

Leonard Cheshire Disability’s new report on perceptions of disability and relationships, Up Close and Personal, challenges long-held assumptions that disabled people don’t - or can’t - have a relationship. Key findings include:

Disabled people have exactly the same hopes and anxieties about relationships as non-disabled people.
Two thirds (68 per cent) of disabled respondents have relationships with non-disabled people.
Both disabled and non-disabled people have low expectations of disabled people’s relationships.

The Aardman team has created another four characters for the charity’s campaign including a blind chameleon, an owl and a shrimp in wheelchairs, and a hearing impaired Cheshire cat.

Bryan Dutton, Leonard Cheshire Disability’s Director General said: “Disabled people experience unnecessary social barriers which are created largely through ignorance. The public’s low expectations, especially of their ability to have relationships, play a big part in this.

“We want people to change the way they see disability, to think and act differently and to engage with disabled people in all aspects of life.”

For a preview of the campaign visit www.CreatureDiscomforts.org. From next Wednesday and throughout the summer the characters will appear in adverts on ITV, online and at bus stops.

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03/07/08 - Leonard Cheshire Disability unveils six brand new Creature Discomforts characters