You’re right when you say “what looks like” a wealthy person. Aimee Mullins comes from a family of extremely modest income. What she has, she earned, through her own talents, intelligence and drive. Perhaps you have done the same.

“there’s the danger in exhibitions like this of glamorizing prosthetics to the point where people who need them have unreasonable expectations of what they can do, or should do, with the ones they can afford.”

In all my years as a disability activist, I’ve never heard anyone even remotely suggest that seeing a talk of this kind created unreasonable expectations. Indeed, what are “unreasonable expectations” of what a person with a disability “can do or should do”?

“I’ve looked at her site, through Google and through her paid speaking agency page, but I can find no instances where she’s spoken to or on the behalf of any of these organizations, or any other prosthetic charities, and I would love to be educated otherwise. The gifts she so graciously displays here – least of all these sets of legs – could do wonders for those in need.”

Mullins is a great activist for disability issues and for women – and for art. Is she obligated to do amputee activism in developing nations because she’s an amputee? Are nondisabled people obligated to do specific types of activism based on their innate physical characteristics? Or are they not allowed to choose their own paths according to their personal desires?

It’s very sad that some people watch this video and say things like “I can’t give this a perfect score until” Mullins does poverty-related amputee activism. If she did nothing, just went to work and came home and watched TV, she wouldn’t be criticized for that. (Some people would think she was a hero just for living day-to-day with a disability!) But she chooses to be involved with art and disability awareness-raising and sports and feminism – and finding new places where all those intersect. But oh no, she doesn’t (we assume) do poverty amputee activism, so bad Aimee, you’re not perfect, we will sit around looking at the internet and criticize you. Bah.

I interviewed Mullins when she was a teenager, then again for the 1996 Parlympics. She exuded such a spirit, you could just feel she was going to do big things.

Another great female amputee runner, same generation as Mullins is Sarah Reinertsen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Reinertsen

Excuse me as I collect the remnants of my dropped jaw.

She does everything Aimee does and more, but on a fraction of the budget.
And in addition to missing her original lower legs she also has no fingers.

The veneer of her wonderful message – that amputation is no longer a disability – thinly covers what readily looks like a wealthy person showing off incredibly fantastic, exclusive and expensive designer clothing, which happens to be in the form of prosthetic legs.

It’s obviously silly to say, as she does in quoting her friend, that it’s not fair that I can’t grow three inches by swapping my two fleshy legs for prosthetics. She uses this point to good effect in making her point that technology has given people the potential to turn what has historically been a severe disability into an augmentation, a superhuman state of function.

However, it isn’t silly to say that it’s not fair for someone to own a pair of hand-carved wooden legs when thousands of children around the world – when even thousands of people in fully-developed countries, who make tens of thousands of dollars a year and have health insurance – can’t even afford one basic prosthetic limb. (And these costs are recurring, as frequently as annually.)

And for those fortunate enough to be able to afford them, there’s the danger in exhibitions like this of glamorizing prosthetics to the point where people who need them have unreasonable expectations of what they can do, or should do, with the ones they can afford. Owning a pair of

I have seen invoices in our company’s archives for complete below-knee prostheses for $150. There were no prosthetic choices given to the consumers; they paid cash for their leg and would often tell me all the wonderful things they were able to do with it. This is no longer the case. Patients now come into our office with all this literature they have printed from the Internet and want a prosthesis just like the one they saw on television. Then they present us with their insurance card, telling us it will pay for whatever they want. This also is not usually the case.

I admire Aimee Mullins, and I respect her. Her research and her work in promoting the advancement of prosthetics technology are truly excellent contributions to humanity. Unfortunately, this talk is not her at her finest or most inspirational, and in focusing on augmentation over cost, it ignores the reality that the vast majority of those in need of prosthetics live with daily.

All the poetry of the ideal she presents here is pointless if only an elite can afford the fees needed to participate. I’d love to hear more about the Open Prosthetics Alliance and the Center For International Rehabilitation, and the Barr Foundation – these groups have nothing as attractive as a photo of Ms. Mullins running on the beach in a swimsuit, or as inspirational as the feats she achieved as an athlete, but they would not ever turn down Ms. Mullins’ help in promoting, designing and delivering affordable, functional prosthetics to landmine victims, wounded soldiers, sufferers of diabetes and vascular disease, and the same or similar birth conditions that led to her own double amputation.

I’ve looked at her site, through Google and through her paid speaking agency page, but I can find no instances where she’s spoken to or on the behalf of any of these organizations, or any other prosthetic charities, and I would love to be educated otherwise. The gifts she so graciously displays here – least of all these sets of legs – could do wonders for those in need.

criticism is healthy, let’s leave the holier than thou attitudes to those who like to simplify disabilities and the challenging solutions to them.

Good on her, yes she is inspiring…it takes nothing from her achievement or attitude to question what else is done for people requiring the same empowerment and are in less of a situation to achieve it.

On the whole I think TED is a great way to communicate issues of science, the environment and arts….however honestly very occasionally i have felt a little queasy when it falls into the traps of mainstream media and fawning fame.

I see no problem in questioning that either..

I’m 33, fairly well educated, attractive, funny as hell, hard working, physically active and fit, and pretty damn average. Your average “amputee” I don’t know. I LOVE Aimee Mullins. Yes, she throws a sexy spin on her persona–something she discusses quite openly. This woman has literally changed the face of “disability” through modeling and appearing as a woman who is worthy of your desire. Yes, Aimee has gotten a lot of perks that I have not. Models and celebrities get a lot of perks regular folks do not. The mere fact that I get to see myself–my disabled self–reflected back at me through mass media is enough for me. I have NEVER seen this before her. By watching and reading about Aimee I am not deluded for one moment that I can get her fashion legs from my prosthetist–it may never happen in my lifetime. I would be thrilled to have those silicone legs. I would be thrilled to have ocean front property, or unlimited cash flow or to have a life in which I could travel all over the world at any given time. None of those things are likely to happen.

I can barely get my insurance to cover my one leg. It’s problematic and it’s unethical. I agree with LGIRL though, I don’t necessarily think it’s her job to change that, just as I don’t necessarily think it’s mine. Aimee is an AMAZING woman. I am an amazing woman. Just because. I hear this pretty regularly and, honestly, it probably DOES stem from my disability–I would not be the woman I am today without it, but don’t put the goddamn weight of the world on my shoulders. And don’t put it on hers. She’s a woman who’s been handed amazing opportunities. I’d take them too if I looked that fine. Prosthetics SHOULD be more affordable to me, to the poor, to everyone. Why aren’t YOU doing something about it?

The Cremaster Cycle is wonderful viewing. That Barney incorporated such a radical, and vital, standard of beauty into his work is wonderful.

Thank you for posting this!

But I cant give it a perfect score until she starts using the influence/resources she has earned as a model/athelete/spokesperson and use it to invigorate prosthesis programs in underprivileged areas.

Which made me think of this from last month: “HOWTO make a prosthetic arm from a pop bottle.”

“I found that fascinating and chilling. Aimee is full of a particular kind of buzzword – enablement, empowerment, humanity, beauty, the conversation with society – and it didn’t seem to be so much in the service of the differently enabled but more in the service of the corporate monolith that proposes high technology and its artistic lackeys as the zenith and goal of human development. Her body language, her outfit, they all said big business. The selling of the idea with a generous helping of sexual titillation makes her a powerful advertisement for industrial plastics. Just in case you didn’t get the point she mentioned Pamela Anderson in between her naked poses.
I doubt very much that your average unattractive, bloated, inarticulate, fucked-up chain smoking amputee has access to the catwalks and the galleries. Aimee’s adventure does not really apply to them. “

Paul

She may regret her actions if she is ever fortunate enough to live past 50.

At that stage, the accellerated stress and wear and tear she has put on her back and the rest of her frame by using these devices will be most painfull and debilitating. Bones and joints are no match for steel and carbon fiber in the long run.

Haters just need to get over themselves, seriously.

Are you saying that, because she requires prosthetic legs, she’s responsible for the needs of everyone else who requires them? She, along with other prosthetized athletes, have done a great service by showing that differently-abled people can function as well or better than standard-issue humans. You’re asking her to be a poster child rather than an inspiration, an activist or simply herself. I appreciate that other people have needs, but can’t she get on with her life and enjoy it on her own terms?

It’s interesting how many discussions about racism, disability, sexism, or any other kind of bigotry for that matter- are really conversations about social class.

America doesn’t really have nay language about social class. We lag behind the brits in that regard.

Aimee Mullins had a metric buttload of help in getting to where she is today. She also has a buttload of talent privilege to help her get from where she’s been to where she is today.

The same is true for Stephen Hawking. Is he obligated to go on lecture tours to promote awareness of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis? Me, I’d rather he just continue researching deep physics.

Second thought: Does she have a specific set of legs just for literally kicking ass?