✭ Kastor ✭

It's not what it sounds like on the surface. The short and sweet definition is anything that uses disabled people as a source of inspiration. It's a bit more complicated than that, though.

The term was coined by Stella Young during her Ted Talk on the subject (linked below), but usually, when talked about in disabled spaces, it describes the use of disabled people to inspire non-disabled people, often either putting the disabled person or the community as a whole at risk, or while ignoring systematic barriers that caused the issues the "inspirational disabled person" has to "overcome" in the first place.

In fiction, this can look like the disabled character doing/trying to do something they physically can't (or struggle to) do, inspiring non-disabled people around them in the process, often times while putting themself in great danger or risk of injury.

An example might that your character is running a marathon, but oh no, the last leg requires runners to go up a big flight of stairs, and your character is in a wheelchair (yes able bodied runners and wheelchair racers can be in the same marathons). No one warned them about this, despite the fact they registered months ago and asked the staff directly if the route was wheelchair accessible, but they've come to far to give up now! So they get out of their wheelchair and pull themself and the chair, very slowly, up the stairs. They loose the lead they had, but that's OK, they never cared about winning, they just want to finish to prove they can do anything a non-disabled person can. Eventually, able bodied runners stop and watch, maybe even offer to help, but our hero is truly an inspiration, and insist they have to do this alone, inspiring others around them to keep pushing through and finish as well. Someone, somewhere in the crowd of onlookers says something to the effect of "if they can do it, I have no excuse!"

Alternatively, it can be almost the exact opposite, and their mere existence as a disabled person is seen as inspiring. This version might look like a member of an adventuring party talking endlessly about their "poor, blind and crippled baby brother" they have to do all this dangerous adventuring to support - little bro has no influence on the story, no character development, nothing, other than to inspire the main character(s). If he does appear directly in the story, it's for some gut-wretching or heart-warming scenes to give the characters some renewed emotional oomph to continue on their quest, because little Timmy is always smiling and if he can smile and be happy despite his disability, so can the hero. sure, your hero might have been kicked out of home, witnessed unspeakable horrors, is so traumatised they haven't slept in weeks and had every other horrible thing you can think of happen to them, but Timmy is visibly disabled, and so thats always going to be worse and your hero has no right to complain in comparison (*cough* sarcasm *cough* *cough*)

These are very exaggerated examples, but it can be more subtle to.

It can look like one of the players in a sports movie who gets in an accident, permanently disabling them before the big game, and their roll in the story after that point becomes emotional support for the rest of the team, and someone the other players can cheer "for bobby" during team huddles.

It can look like your character being praised as a hero for "good deeds" involving common curtosy towards a disabled person (aka just not being a dick to them) or you using your character's proximity to disability to justify calling them a good person (e.g. they have a kid with autism, they must be an angel!).

Inspiration porn shows up in the real world too, and it's so normalised most non-disabled folks can't recognise it when they see it. One especially infuriating example i remeber from a few years ago was a story of a teacher who carried one of his (middle school) students around on his back for a school excursion, as she used the wheelchair and the location wasn't accessible. The teacher was praised as a saint and and angel, but most people completely ignored the part of the story where he was the one who was in charge of picking the location for the excursion, he had the option to choose between a fully accessible place and one that was not accessible at all. Despite the fact she'd been in his class all year, he just forgot to account for her. When he was reminded, he doubled down, assuming she wouldn't want to go, so it didn't matter, and booking the inaccessible venue anyway. Turns out, she did want to go and had already paid the fee and everything, so he offered to carry her around for the day. Despite the fact he intentionally made the trip inaccessible after forgetting about her in the first place, he was applauded for "going the extra mile". The story was presented as a feel-good story for non-disabled people, when it all could have been avoided if he'd just remembered to include her and not made assumptions from the beginning.

Inspiration porn can be obvious, like the points mentioned in this post, but it can also be subtle, which is why so many well-meaning authors don't realise they're including it at all. If you're writing disabled characters, you need to be aware of inspiration porn in all its forms, especially if you haven't been on the receiving end of it yourself. Being seen as an inspiration in this way strip's disabled people of their humanity, and they end up being seen as just objects, sources of inspiration, and when a real disabled person doesn't live up to this idea non-disabled folks have in their head because of the media they've consuned, they treat you terribly. I know a lot of authors don't like hearing this, or maybe you do, but your work can influence people, especially when you feature people who the public doesn't know a lot about.