Marketing the Acceptably Athletic Image: Wheelchair Athletes, Sport-Related Advertising and Capitalist Hegemony

People with disabilities have historically been excluded in the realms of sport - where they fail to meet standards of the "ideal sporting body" - and in advertising, where they also fail to meet an ideal-body standard. This research explores the attitudes of athletes with disabilities toward sport, advertising, and their exclusion from mainstream culture. Through interviews with 10 wheelchair basketball players, the author explores how deeply hegemonic ideals inform and influence the beliefs and values of participants. The author also explores the sensitivity of the participants to images of disability in advertising. Findings support the earlier literature regarding the attitudes of people with disabilities toward advertising: participants said they generally ignore advertising because it does not reflect the reality of their lives, but are acutely sensitive to positive images of disability in ads. This study also supports the assertion by scholars that people with disabilities - even those who have begun to reject their oppression - still internalize the "able-bodied ideal" inherent in capitalist hegemony.