Browse content similar to Aimee Mullins - Athlete, actor and model. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
Line | From | To | |
---|---|---|---|
HARDtalk is in New York City, and my guest today is a woman who has | :00:14. | :00:20. | |
spent her life challenging the assumptions that go with the label | :00:21. | :00:23. | |
"physically disabled." Amy Mullins had both of her legs amputated | :00:23. | :00:29. | |
below the knee when she was just a year old. She went on to become a | :00:30. | :00:35. | |
champion athlete, an actor, and a highly paid model. She has been | :00:35. | :00:40. | |
feteed as an inspiration across America. But what is is the real | :00:40. | :00:50. | |
:00:50. | :01:01. | ||
lesson of the remarkable story of Amy Mullins, welcome to HARDtalk. | :01:01. | :01:07. | |
Thank you. It's fair to say you made your name as an athlete First, | :01:07. | :01:10. | |
yeah. Who starred in the Paralympics, who broke world | :01:10. | :01:15. | |
records. I just wonder, you know, in a way, do you feel athletics was | :01:15. | :01:19. | |
where you could be the very best? No. Not at all. It was one of the | :01:19. | :01:25. | |
areas in which I felt I could be the very best. I think my | :01:25. | :01:29. | |
resistance to being put in a box that's nice and neat and to be tied | :01:29. | :01:34. | |
up with a bow has really been the one defining thing of my life and | :01:34. | :01:39. | |
my career. I thought it would be unlikely that sports would be the | :01:39. | :01:45. | |
first place I would make my name. I mean, acting was really what I knew | :01:45. | :01:50. | |
I wanted to do from my earliest memories. I was even recalling this | :01:50. | :01:55. | |
morning - because it's the bicentennial of Dickens' birthday - | :01:55. | :02:02. | |
that my first play on stage was Oliver. And the joy, the adrenaline | :02:02. | :02:05. | |
- all of those things that it brought me - it's the same thing | :02:05. | :02:09. | |
whether you're performing in an Olympic stadium or you're walking | :02:09. | :02:14. | |
out onto a stage to do a monologue, or you're telling a story in front | :02:15. | :02:20. | |
of 300 or 3,000 people at a design conference. Here's what strikes me | :02:20. | :02:26. | |
about everything you've just described - where you get your | :02:26. | :02:29. | |
satisfactions, from the athletics arena, from the stage, or from the | :02:29. | :02:34. | |
big hall where you are speaking or performing. All of them are | :02:34. | :02:38. | |
intensely exposed places, physically exposing places. And yet, | :02:38. | :02:43. | |
you know, we have to, in a way, begin by discussing the fact that, | :02:43. | :02:48. | |
from the age of one, you were a double amputee. And yet you never | :02:48. | :02:54. | |
shied away from those physically exposing places. No I've never | :02:54. | :03:01. | |
shied away from anything like that. just realised in the last few years | :03:01. | :03:05. | |
that that is the common thread that does link together all of the | :03:05. | :03:11. | |
things I've done. In every way, whether it's prom sports to really | :03:11. | :03:17. | |
using my body as a coathanger in the fashion world, to provoking | :03:17. | :03:23. | |
conversations about ideas around beauty or the human body and | :03:23. | :03:28. | |
looking at advanced prosthetic design, to the kind of ancient art | :03:28. | :03:35. | |
form of doing theatre. Storytelling has always been at the heart of | :03:35. | :03:38. | |
that. It's something I'm comfortable doing. It's something I | :03:38. | :03:42. | |
like doing. And it's being very private in a very public way. | :03:42. | :03:46. | |
that the case from being very young? When you're growing up and | :03:46. | :03:51. | |
getting used to the idea that you have particular challenges to face | :03:51. | :03:54. | |
because of what happened to you and what happened to your body, to your | :03:54. | :04:04. | |
:04:04. | :04:04. | ||
legs, did you never, as a youngster, want to sort of avoid being watched | :04:04. | :04:09. | |
by hundreds of people, being under the gaze of a wide audience? | :04:09. | :04:14. | |
think there was a distinction in my mind from being stared at, with the | :04:14. | :04:17. | |
focus being my legs - that certainly gave me some | :04:17. | :04:21. | |
uncomfortable moments as a child. I mean, that's - you know the | :04:21. | :04:26. | |
difference and feeling between an audience, whether it's in a | :04:26. | :04:32. | |
supermarket or on the beach, staring at you with a sense of | :04:32. | :04:35. | |
hesitation or even fear, versus - Did you remember that? Absolutely, | :04:35. | :04:41. | |
yeah. Absolutely. I think people are afraid of what they don't | :04:41. | :04:47. | |
understand. But that's where the opportunity to perform in a public | :04:47. | :04:50. | |
way can engage conversation. And I guess your parents must have been | :04:50. | :04:53. | |
aware of that too - maybe when they were on the beach with you as a | :04:54. | :04:57. | |
young girl, or shopping in the supermarket - they might have seen | :04:57. | :05:02. | |
people staring at you sometimes. But did they, in talking to you | :05:02. | :05:10. | |
about all of this, ever say to you, "You know what, Aimee? You may want | :05:10. | :05:15. | |
to make choices in life which leave you less exposed"? Or did they | :05:15. | :05:18. | |
encourage you to be out there, up- front, in a sense, in people's | :05:18. | :05:22. | |
faces with who you were? We didn't talk about it, Stephen. We didn't | :05:22. | :05:28. | |
talk about it. My parents had bigger issues on their plate, like, | :05:28. | :05:36. | |
you know, paying the mortgage and working, you know, two jobs. And my | :05:36. | :05:40. | |
two younger brothers to raise. Than to worry about how secure my psyche | :05:40. | :05:43. | |
was as a child. It was really kind of like "Get on with it. Stick up | :05:43. | :05:47. | |
for yourself if you need to stick up for yourself. This is the | :05:47. | :05:51. | |
reality of the world. People are gonna stare at you. What are you | :05:51. | :05:56. | |
gonna do about it?" It was very much a culture of self-reliance. | :05:56. | :06:00. | |
I've looked back at your record. You were a successful athlete, but | :06:00. | :06:04. | |
you were doing, it seems to me, two different things. On one level, you | :06:04. | :06:10. | |
were trying to compete against able-bodied athletes in running and | :06:10. | :06:15. | |
jumping and all that sort of stuff. That same time, you were becoming a | :06:15. | :06:20. | |
leading member of the American Paralympic team. I just wonder | :06:21. | :06:27. | |
which meant more to you - trying to compete - and you were competing - | :06:27. | :06:31. | |
against the able-bodied, or developing that career in the | :06:31. | :06:36. | |
Paralympic team. I never saw them as separate. I had never met | :06:36. | :06:42. | |
another amputee until my late teen years. The internet didn't kick in, | :06:42. | :06:46. | |
really, until 1995, so the idea that you could sit down, as you do | :06:46. | :06:51. | |
today, and type in "amputee" or "prosthetic" and have thousands of | :06:51. | :06:55. | |
images with which to educate yourself and decide whether or not, | :06:56. | :07:01. | |
you know, "Oh, there's a sporting event for me if I want to race | :07:01. | :07:08. | |
against other amputees ." It just wasn't around for me. I remember | :07:08. | :07:12. | |
being in second grade and my godmother called - "Quickly, turn | :07:12. | :07:18. | |
on the telly to this morning news programme." There was a gymnast on | :07:18. | :07:23. | |
who had her arm amputated from the elbow down, and she was doing flips | :07:23. | :07:29. | |
and cartwheels. Of course, you had to write in to the show, cos she | :07:29. | :07:35. | |
had some great prosthetic and it was the beginnings of an electric | :07:35. | :07:40. | |
wrist. You had to write to the show, hope they would pass the letter on | :07:40. | :07:45. | |
to your person - you're talking six months, perhaps. That was how you | :07:45. | :07:48. | |
found out about new technology. The insurance situation in the United | :07:48. | :07:53. | |
States is such that a lot of the new intelligent technology being | :07:53. | :07:56. | |
created in the realm of prosthetics wasn't going to be covered any time | :07:56. | :08:01. | |
soon. So the producethetist didn't have any way to let you know about | :08:01. | :08:06. | |
new things. You developed, along with designers, the - I suppose | :08:07. | :08:13. | |
what is the prototype of the "blade" that we now know with Oscar | :08:13. | :08:16. | |
Pistorious and his feats on the track in the Paralympics and | :08:16. | :08:22. | |
regular competition as well. Did you see the blade, and the fitting | :08:22. | :08:28. | |
the blades to your legs, as the way that you could actually compete on | :08:28. | :08:33. | |
a playing field with the able- bodied? Stephen, I competed on the | :08:33. | :08:35. | |
playing field with athletes who didn't use prosthetics my whole | :08:35. | :08:39. | |
life. I was on a state championship softball team for five years. I was | :08:39. | :08:44. | |
a swimmer. I played - you name the sport, I played it. I was racing | :08:44. | :08:48. | |
downhill skiing in high school, and winning. And I remember thinking, | :08:48. | :08:53. | |
"I really shouldn't tell anybody that my legs are wooden, because I | :08:53. | :08:56. | |
don't have freezing-cold feet to worry about going down the slopes." | :08:56. | :09:03. | |
I always was looking at the perspective of how I could possibly | :09:03. | :09:08. | |
use everything I had for the advantages it might hold. When you | :09:08. | :09:11. | |
into second base and you've got wooden legs, and that girl knows | :09:11. | :09:15. | |
what's coming at her, she usually gets out of the way! She so I | :09:15. | :09:19. | |
actually had the stolen-bases record one year in my softball | :09:19. | :09:23. | |
league. This is where it gets interesting. This is exactly where | :09:23. | :09:26. | |
the argument over Oscar Pistorious and his blades is right now - the | :09:26. | :09:33. | |
discussion is whether, in some respects, the technology gives the | :09:33. | :09:38. | |
Paralympian an unfair advantage - this idea of the level playing | :09:38. | :09:42. | |
field - perhaps the advantage these days lies with those who are able | :09:42. | :09:45. | |
to employ technology with prosthetics? Well, it doesn't | :09:45. | :09:49. | |
currently, but it will in the future. First of all, I have to | :09:49. | :09:52. | |
address the idea of a level playing field. That's ridiculous in sport. | :09:52. | :09:58. | |
We don't have such a thing. We don't care when Tyson Gay, at 5ft | :09:58. | :10:03. | |
11in, lines up against Usain Bolt at 6ft 5in and how different that | :10:03. | :10:07. | |
stride length is. We don't care so much when we look at a country that | :10:07. | :10:11. | |
doesn't have the economic resources to have access to training and | :10:11. | :10:18. | |
facilities and the best coaches and hyperbaric chambers to train. | :10:18. | :10:23. | |
Understood, but those differences are, in the end, differences about | :10:23. | :10:29. | |
the way in which what God gave, if you put it that way, us in terms of | :10:29. | :10:39. | |
the human body - So it's technology versus carbon fiber and titanium? | :10:39. | :10:42. | |
That seems to be the way the discuss is running right now. Is | :10:42. | :10:45. | |
that meaningless? Yeah! Materials are materials. We have to ask | :10:45. | :10:48. | |
ourselves as a society why we're fine with sport evolving in every | :10:48. | :10:52. | |
other way - cycling, tennis, golf - they don't use the same materials | :10:52. | :10:57. | |
they used 50 years ago. We allow pitchers in baseball to have | :10:57. | :11:03. | |
muscles removed from their thighs and implanted in their elbows once | :11:03. | :11:08. | |
nature has told them their limit is up on throwing. We don't care that | :11:08. | :11:14. | |
Tiger Woods gets not one, but two lazeic surgeries with which to | :11:14. | :11:17. | |
better his vision past what nature would have allowed. This is | :11:17. | :11:21. | |
happening all across sport. With the specific case with regards to | :11:21. | :11:26. | |
Oscar, it was ruled upon four years ago by the governing body - there | :11:26. | :11:32. | |
is no definitive science, no peer- reviewed science, that points to | :11:32. | :11:37. | |
any net advantage. I mean, there's a lot you can go into with respect | :11:37. | :11:42. | |
of, "OK, hip swing versus force generated on the ground." At the | :11:42. | :11:46. | |
end of the day, Stephen, name me one Olympian who has voluntarily | :11:46. | :11:52. | |
amputated their legs for this so- called advantage. None. I'll name | :11:52. | :11:57. | |
you one Paralympian - Thanhy Grey Thompson, in the UK who is | :11:57. | :12:02. | |
concerned that, if athletes like Pistorious end up competing in the | :12:02. | :12:09. | |
Olympics as well as the Paralympics, that it will end up devaluing the | :12:09. | :12:13. | |
Paralympics - the Paralympics will end up looking like a sort of | :12:13. | :12:17. | |
second-class event or a second- class prize to be sought. Can you | :12:17. | :12:24. | |
see where she's coming from with that concern? I respect Tanny Grey | :12:24. | :12:27. | |
Thompson as an athly, but I really disagree with her on this point. | :12:27. | :12:34. | |
First of all, it's happened already. Mala Runyan ran in the Olympics and | :12:34. | :12:41. | |
Paralympics, Brian McKeehan, a skier. Sarah Story from Great | :12:41. | :12:45. | |
Britain may well compete in the Olympics and Paralympics next | :12:45. | :12:50. | |
summer. There's a swimmer from South Africa with one leg amputated | :12:50. | :12:53. | |
who swam in Beijing. There's a table-tennis player from Poland. | :12:53. | :12:56. | |
It's happened already. It certainly hasn't diminished the value and the | :12:56. | :13:01. | |
excitement of the Paralympic games thus far. It will only continue, I | :13:01. | :13:06. | |
think, to raise the awareness of the Paralympic Games and to | :13:06. | :13:11. | |
encourage more and more people to think of how they can test | :13:11. | :13:15. | |
themselves against the best athletes in the world, period - | :13:15. | :13:18. | |
that's gender, that's race, and that's whether or not you run with | :13:18. | :13:21. | |
some kind of assisted medical device that you need to use in | :13:21. | :13:26. | |
order to run. A final thought on the Paralympics - it's a simple one. | :13:26. | :13:30. | |
You are the chief of the US team going to the Paralympics, and | :13:30. | :13:35. | |
indeed the Olympics - a joint chief of the teams. I just wonder, when | :13:35. | :13:39. | |
you look back at Beijing, the last Olympics, and look at the way the | :13:40. | :13:46. | |
US media covered the Paralympics in particular, we saw NBC - who'd had | :13:46. | :13:51. | |
more than 2,000 staff covering the Beijing Olympics - reduce their | :13:51. | :13:55. | |
staffing for the Paralympics to just a handful of people, I think | :13:55. | :14:00. | |
five or six people were left behind. Is it going to be different this | :14:00. | :14:04. | |
time around? Do you think the American public and the American | :14:04. | :14:14. | |
:14:14. | :14:15. | ||
media rare really care about When I competed in the Paralympics | :14:15. | :14:20. | |
as a teenager, I have not even heard of it. There was such little | :14:20. | :14:26. | |
media awareness. The internet has done so much to advance that. It | :14:26. | :14:35. | |
has actually been the last 5-6 years that the US Committee is | :14:35. | :14:41. | |
house along the US Olympic Committee. Many people around the | :14:41. | :14:47. | |
world see the Paralympics, I'm putting this in quotes, the | :14:47. | :14:55. | |
disabled games, you have always spoken out about your dislike of | :14:56. | :15:02. | |
this word, disabled. Explain to me why it matters so much to you that | :15:02. | :15:06. | |
people, with all sorts of different physical impairments are not put in | :15:06. | :15:12. | |
this collective gripping of disabled. It is not so much that I | :15:12. | :15:16. | |
have an issue with that word, I have an issue with the laziness | :15:16. | :15:23. | |
with which people use said. 60 years ago when someone required | :15:23. | :15:30. | |
classes in order to see, they would have been considered disabled. -- | :15:30. | :15:38. | |
glasses. We do not think of it like that today. They are so on the | :15:38. | :15:45. | |
present that we do not think of it as a disability any more. The | :15:45. | :15:50. | |
average age of Americans, the larger segment of the population is | :15:50. | :16:00. | |
:16:00. | :16:01. | ||
over 65, in Europe as well. He replacements are becoming | :16:01. | :16:06. | |
commonplace. If you look at that word, it is one word -- one thing | :16:06. | :16:12. | |
to apply the word to a car that has broken down. It is another thing to | :16:12. | :16:16. | |
apply it to a child who has their entire life ahead of them. This is | :16:16. | :16:21. | |
the baggage that we want to saddle them with. We presume they are | :16:21. | :16:25. | |
limited because their bodies or mines were differently to a typical | :16:25. | :16:35. | |
:16:35. | :16:35. | ||
one. By the way, what does that mean? -- minds work. Isn't it | :16:35. | :16:41. | |
important to give as powerful as boys as possible to those who have | :16:41. | :16:51. | |
there is a physical impairments? -- voice. By talking about the | :16:51. | :16:55. | |
disabled and disabilities, in politics for example, it gives that | :16:55. | :16:59. | |
particular group of people, a collective voice, a collective | :16:59. | :17:07. | |
power they wouldn't have. I have never been a representative of a | :17:07. | :17:13. | |
group that is so diverse. I have no idea -- no idea what it is like to | :17:13. | :17:19. | |
have a visual impairment or a hearing impairment. What I know is | :17:19. | :17:23. | |
my experience. What I would ask is that we refer to people as the | :17:23. | :17:29. | |
individuals that they are. Let's go to your decision to go into | :17:29. | :17:35. | |
modelling. That is a very particular field. That is where a | :17:35. | :17:39. | |
very narrow aesthetic is imposed on people in that business. Why did | :17:39. | :17:46. | |
you want to take that on? I thought that modelling and fashion | :17:46. | :17:50. | |
advertising in general was just a great arena in which to have a | :17:50. | :17:56. | |
conversation about a social issue which usually has such heavy | :17:56. | :18:01. | |
overtones that it tends to not engage as many people in the | :18:01. | :18:07. | |
conversation as should be engaged. Quite simply, it demands, | :18:07. | :18:13. | |
particularly of the women inside that business, a look. If you look | :18:13. | :18:18. | |
at the models we see around the world, they tend to be very tall, | :18:18. | :18:25. | |
slim, flawless in their features. That is why people look at that | :18:25. | :18:29. | |
industry and think it creates a false impression of the way people | :18:29. | :18:34. | |
are. It probably does create a false impression. It is not meant | :18:34. | :18:40. | |
to reflect the way people are, it is meant to be fantastic. One | :18:40. | :18:47. | |
designer's crazy dream about what they see in the fantasy for spring | :18:47. | :18:54. | |
2012. It is not meant to be representative. I really think | :18:55. | :18:59. | |
about from Gandhi, you must be the change you wish to see in the world. | :18:59. | :19:06. | |
If I did not like what I thought fashion was putting out as a | :19:06. | :19:10. | |
representative of beauty, why not change the conversation? Why not | :19:10. | :19:15. | |
get myself involved in the conversation? Which I have been | :19:15. | :19:20. | |
lucky enough to do. You talk about the conversation as if you have the | :19:20. | :19:25. | |
power to influence the people you work with, do you really? You say | :19:25. | :19:32. | |
it is very important to cost of eight the healthy body image. -- | :19:32. | :19:41. | |
cultivate. The image of that young women seek, is not actually | :19:41. | :19:48. | |
cultivating a healthy body image at all. This is where I was at a huge | :19:48. | :19:52. | |
advantage. I never saw myself represented at in fashion | :19:52. | :19:59. | |
advertising almost advertising. I was never influenced by those | :19:59. | :20:04. | |
images of what I should be. I was empowered because of the lack of | :20:04. | :20:13. | |
those images to create my an idea about what a beautiful model could | :20:13. | :20:22. | |
be. Once I started having a public profile in the mid-1990s, people | :20:22. | :20:27. | |
came up to me and said, you are a very beautiful girl, you do not | :20:27. | :20:34. | |
look disabled. Either that is so interesting, I do not feel disabled. | :20:34. | :20:40. | |
-- I thought. People were admitting something to me, the last against | :20:40. | :20:45. | |
them paradigm. You do not feel like one of them, you feel like one of | :20:45. | :20:51. | |
us. Of course, we are all one of us. Do you think the industry has | :20:51. | :20:57. | |
become more open to different body images, body shapes? I think the | :20:57. | :21:01. | |
industry has a long way to go. But I do think they have become more | :21:01. | :21:08. | |
open in celebrating a broader range and diversity of the kinds of | :21:08. | :21:13. | |
people that are indeed beautiful. That do indeed radiate something | :21:13. | :21:18. | |
attractive. A lot of times people do not remember they have a lot | :21:18. | :21:22. | |
more power in this argument than they think they do. You vote with | :21:22. | :21:26. | |
your wallet. If you do not like the advertising that a company is | :21:26. | :21:31. | |
giving you, do not buy the product. You have talked about the | :21:31. | :21:36. | |
stereotypes that have greeted you when you have gone to do jobs, you | :21:36. | :21:42. | |
do not look disabled. Is that also true of you're acting career? Is it | :21:42. | :21:50. | |
difficult to get the parts that the not involve Aimee Mullins, the | :21:50. | :21:56. | |
celebrated double amputee, rather than Aimee Mullins playing a | :21:56. | :22:02. | |
character part in a movie or a play which has nothing to do with your | :22:03. | :22:09. | |
particular back story? It has been an interesting journey. In the | :22:09. | :22:17. | |
beginning, yes. Absolutely. This is another business that is usually | :22:17. | :22:21. | |
marked by categories. The stereotypes of these seven carat -- | :22:21. | :22:31. | |
:22:31. | :22:33. | ||
categories. Really he -- you have to be in the game for long enough | :22:33. | :22:41. | |
worry your talent will speak for itself. Yesterday, I read for a | :22:41. | :22:46. | |
lawyer, journalist and a CIA operative. None of them had any | :22:47. | :22:54. | |
prosthetics. That has taken a few years. I had plenty of offers to | :22:54. | :23:04. | |
play it landmine victims. None of which I could do. I had these | :23:04. | :23:14. | |
:23:14. | :23:14. | ||
lovely moments when producers or directors have seen, you do not | :23:14. | :23:22. | |
have mobility issues for this role... Could I'd play a ballerina? | :23:22. | :23:28. | |
Probably not. In the end I want to come back to the beginning, which | :23:28. | :23:32. | |
is about your basic motivation. When you have casting directors | :23:32. | :23:39. | |
offering you endless rolls as a land mine victim, part of the must | :23:39. | :23:49. | |
:23:49. | :23:49. | ||
think I do not want to be in this business? Part -- part of you. | :23:49. | :23:55. | |
have to change this industry. That is what I think. There are actors | :23:55. | :24:04. | |
out there who are contributing to this push. I have the opportunity | :24:04. | :24:08. |