No Words

No Words is a trope we have created specifically for Critical Axis so we can track a trend we have noticed, where the more words a disabled person communicates in media, the less believable that ad is perceived by audiences.

In No Words, the disabled person does not communicate (either verbally or non-verbally) or their only communication is in response to another person, who is presumably doing something for them. We do note that on occasion, the disabled person is asked to espouse a brand line.

We attribute this trend to all the ways disabled people have been sidelined in our own stories, in favor of experts, who are not disabled, but historically have been granted the authority to speak on our behalf. One of our primary goals in pursuing Critical Axis, is to increase the amount of words disabled people have a platform to communicate in mainstream settings.