Between accessibility and inclusion: gender, sexuality, race and ableism in the audio description of the Italian Tv Series Prisma

Abstract

This thesis project aims to illustrate the paradoxical relation between accessibility and inclusivity in audio description (AD) of the Italian TV series Prisma (2022). Audio description is a progressive tool to enhance accessibility to blind and visually impaired people to visual productions. However, the language used in audio description still reifies ideological norms on bodies and identities in relation to gender, sexuality, race and ableism. The theoretical frameworks of my thesis are grounded on a combination of feminist, disability, decolonial and queer studies and representation theories. I discuss Stuart Hall’s representation theories, Donna Haraway’s situated knowledges, the disabilities studies of Lennard J. Davis, the work of Oyèrónké Oyeˇwùmí on the visualization of the body in Western culture, Judith Butler’s gender performativity theories, Georgina Kleege’s work on blindness and the studies on sexuality and disability of Rosemarie Garland-Thomson. The findings of my research show that, the rule of objectivity that is mandatory in audio description’s guidelines, is impossible to be pursued and contrasts with the situatedness of its language. The AD of Prisma are produced by the white Western ablest and male perspective that designed a concept of normal body that influences the relevance of the physical characteristics described and the linguistic choices of the audio describer. This assumption is proved for example by the absence of description of the physical characteristics that fits the norm or the excessive visibility of the body of ‘the other’. Due to that, identity is still perceived as a bodily matter but only for certain categories of people. As a consequence, the innovative themes on gender identity and disability representation introduced in Prisma contrast with the actual language of AD. This situation is emphasized by the marginalization of AD from audio-visual productions that obscures the necessity to develop accessible tool that are also inclusive.