Love Island: As a young, visually impaired fan of the series, the casting and portrayal of Hugo Hammond’s disability is better late than never | Ents & Arts News

It took seven Love Island series – and a considerable amount of coaxing from viewers – for the producers to pick a candidate with a disability.

In 2019, the bosses of ITV answered the questions I had asked about disability by referring to the costs of adapting the villa. Richard Cowles, the show’s producer, also previously said that while they wanted the show to be “representative” they also wanted contestants to “feel attracted to each other.”

Thus, the inclusion of disability in Island of love 2021 means a lot more to me – as a visually impaired young woman – than a rocky exercise.

For all my disappointment in the show in the past, I think they’ve done a pretty remarkable job so far with their portrayal of Hugo Hammond, a 24-year-old physical education teacher from Hampshire.

He’s not there for the sympathy factor, which can sometimes be lacking on shows like First Dates. He’s just a sexy, single dude who, according to one of his first on-air icebreaker confessions, has ever had sex in the middle of a road. And it turns out that I was born with a club foot.

As well as promoting equal opportunities for the rest of the real world, this year’s series could really help dispel myths, says Kelly Gordon, disability manager for a sex tech brand and host of the positive sex podcast. , Pleasure Rebels.

As a wheelchair user, she met people who were shocked that she was sexually active and in a relationship.

“Every time I walked into a mainstream sex shop, I was interrogated on the doorstep or condescending and infantilized, which made me so uncomfortable that I left,” she says.

“Standardizing disability onscreen could make people more open to the fact that people with disabilities are attractive and to consider dating people with disabilities in the same way they would consider dating a non-disabled person. ..