ABSTRACT
Critical disability studies seek to expose the creation of a normative body. This discipline has both established the way a disabled body is created and, more recently, considered the creation of ableness. By their very nature, all bodies are out of control and people with disability are an acute reminder of the temporariness of an able-bodied ontology. Disability sports both reveal and maintain the production of ableism. This chapter discusses sport as popular culture and the contradictions and ambiguities this form of entertainment and physical pursuit opens up. It then outlines a brief history of the Paralympic games as it emerged in Britain through a rehabilitative discourse following the Second World War. The Paralympics is the most widely known disabled sports event in popular culture. The chapter draws case studies from media representations of disabled sports. Sport is a complicated example of popular culture that draws influence from changing technology, everyday life, commercialisation, entertainment, beauty and aesthetics.
