Just Calling it as it Apprears to me

The commercial of topic: "Our Only Disability is How You Perceive Us". The subjects, individuals with special needs dressed up in outfits representing their specialties waving and grinning stupidly as the camera pans over them.

My issue: Is the stereotype for those with special needs NOT already an image of them grinning stupidly while waving? Yet here we are subjecting them to the very stereotype.

Another offender: Home Hardware
How so? Home Hardware has a commercial that announces their support for amateur and professional athletes. In the commercial, the athlete skates around and a skiff of ice is splashed into the face of the camera. The hockey player (or cross county skier or high jumper or whoever), then introduces himself as "Bob Holland" or whoever, says what he does and thanks Home Hardware for their support.

Immediately after such commercial we get to watch two old ladies propping up an individual with special needs. He or she is a special Olympics athlete. He or she gets the line "Hi, I'm Alvin (or whoever), I play in the special Olympics and I work at Home Hardware", then one of the two old people says "Home Hardware supports athletes like Alvin."

Wow, way to go Home Hardware- you are attempting to include those with disabilities and by attempting to do so, you are still excluding. Why can't we know Alvin's last name like we did with the able-bodied/minded athlete? Why can't we see a shot of he or she ripping around the ice on their own like we did of the able-bodiedminded athlete? Why in our attempts to include (if that's so desperately what we want) are we still watching grinning and waving people? I want to see them at the computer doing what they do best, or high jumping if that's what they do. Instead we are setting them up- you don't see Sidney Crosby standing in front of the camera holding his hockey stick grinning and waving? How about the Gaylen Westen or whoever from President's Choice foods? That guy from Bell Mobility? He's not waving and grinning, no the only people who are asked to stand in front of a camera grinning and smiling are people with no last names, no specifically addressed specialty and a clear disability of whom we are supposedly including into our society and they are doing so while we all pat ourselves on the back for a society of inclusion.

Knock it off media fuckers and let people of special needs prove to the disbelievers that they are capable of anything rather than support the initial perceptions.