ABSTRACT
This chapter interrogates the role of disability in Australian national identity by drawing on a content analysis of disability in the Australian television drama genre. The analysis encompassed the six highest-rating Screen Australia-funded television drama series and one film shown on both free-to-air and subscription television throughout 2015. Although obvious representations of disability, for example, people who used wheelchairs or who had a vision or hearing impairment, were not frequently represented in these dramas selected for analysis, five of the series (as well as the one film) depicted historical representations and, as such, the analysis focused on any impairment effects related to wartime trauma and on contemporary Australian concerns relating to the mental health of returning soldiers at the time these dramas were made. The chapter argues that these narratives of the returned soldier offer fertile grounds for both disability studies and critical trauma studies to collaborate in the production of new scholarship.
