Rosie Jones and the R Word

Rosie Jones, the much-loved comedian, actor and commentator, has been the subject of a lot of abuse all her life, due to cruel and abhorrent reactions to her Cerebral Palsy. She decided to create a documentary about the trolling and abuse faced by disabled people to highlight the issue. In true, provocative Rosie Jones style, she chose the title, “Rosie Jones: Am I a R*tard”, shown on Channel 4 at 10.00pm on 20th July 2023.

She then faced a backlash by some disabled people, for using the R word in the title. This word is a disgusting word used by ignorant people to mock disabled people, and it can be extremely traumatic for people who have been on the receiving end of this cruel abuse. It can instantly trigger memories of being constantly bullied by the use of this word throughout their lives.

This whole issue is extremely important to us at Evenbreak. All of the Evenbreak team have lived experience of disability, and so it’s up close and personal to all of us. Hate crime and the abuse of disabled people, whatever form it takes, is despicable, and something we stand up against.

And so it was that we were presented with a dilemma. We have created an advert to go on Channel 4 to promote Evenbreak, and to represent a positive and intersectional view of disabled people. Would we like its first airing to be during the Rosie Jones documentary?

We absolutely acknowledge the pain the title of this documentary has caused many disabled people. And we also stand firmly beside Rosie Jones in highlighting the abuse faced by disabled people. And the documentary is explicitly tackling the impact that the use of this terrible word, and others like it, have on disabled people, which has to be a good thing.

So, we decided to go ahead with the placing of our advert in the breaks in this documentary. We haven’t seen it yet, but we trust Rosie to have challenged abuse to disabled people in a thought-provoking way. We absolutely support Rosie in highlighting this much-ignored subject. The media talks about racism, sexism and homophobia, but rarely about ableism, and we’re glad this is being tackled by Channel 4.

The R word is a foul word, but we can’t pretend it’s never used to mock disabled people – horrifyingly, it is still used on a regular basis. This isn’t tolerable, and we support Rosie in sharing her lived experience and challenging it. We hope that society will see it is as unacceptable as the N word and the P word are in racism.

If you choose not to watch the documentary, that’s completely understandable (I think it’s actually aimed at non-disabled people to raise awareness – us disabled people already know the long-lasting and real damage ableism causes). And you can still catch our advert in The Last Leg the following evening!

In the meantime, disabled people need to support each other in fighting ableism. However we choose to do that (and we’re all different), ableism is our common enemy.