Aimee Mullins - Athlete, actor and model HARDtalk


Aimee Mullins - Athlete, actor and model

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HARDtalk is in New York City, and my guest today is a woman who has

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spent her life challenging the assumptions that go with the label

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"physically disabled." Amy Mullins had both of her legs amputated

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below the knee when she was just a year old. She went on to become a

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champion athlete, an actor, and a highly paid model. She has been

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feteed as an inspiration across America. But what is is the real

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lesson of the remarkable story of Amy Mullins, welcome to HARDtalk.

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Thank you. It's fair to say you made your name as an athlete First,

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yeah. Who starred in the Paralympics, who broke world

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records. I just wonder, you know, in a way, do you feel athletics was

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where you could be the very best? No. Not at all. It was one of the

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areas in which I felt I could be the very best. I think my

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resistance to being put in a box that's nice and neat and to be tied

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up with a bow has really been the one defining thing of my life and

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my career. I thought it would be unlikely that sports would be the

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first place I would make my name. I mean, acting was really what I knew

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I wanted to do from my earliest memories. I was even recalling this

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morning - because it's the bicentennial of Dickens' birthday -

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that my first play on stage was Oliver. And the joy, the adrenaline

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- all of those things that it brought me - it's the same thing

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whether you're performing in an Olympic stadium or you're walking

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out onto a stage to do a monologue, or you're telling a story in front

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of 300 or 3,000 people at a design conference. Here's what strikes me

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about everything you've just described - where you get your

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satisfactions, from the athletics arena, from the stage, or from the

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big hall where you are speaking or performing. All of them are

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intensely exposed places, physically exposing places. And yet,

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you know, we have to, in a way, begin by discussing the fact that,

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from the age of one, you were a double amputee. And yet you never

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shied away from those physically exposing places. No I've never

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shied away from anything like that. just realised in the last few years

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that that is the common thread that does link together all of the

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things I've done. In every way, whether it's prom sports to really

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using my body as a coathanger in the fashion world, to provoking

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conversations about ideas around beauty or the human body and

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looking at advanced prosthetic design, to the kind of ancient art

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form of doing theatre. Storytelling has always been at the heart of

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that. It's something I'm comfortable doing. It's something I

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like doing. And it's being very private in a very public way.

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that the case from being very young? When you're growing up and

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getting used to the idea that you have particular challenges to face

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because of what happened to you and what happened to your body, to your

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legs, did you never, as a youngster, want to sort of avoid being watched

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by hundreds of people, being under the gaze of a wide audience?

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think there was a distinction in my mind from being stared at, with the

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focus being my legs - that certainly gave me some

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uncomfortable moments as a child. I mean, that's - you know the

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difference and feeling between an audience, whether it's in a

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supermarket or on the beach, staring at you with a sense of

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hesitation or even fear, versus - Did you remember that? Absolutely,

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yeah. Absolutely. I think people are afraid of what they don't

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understand. But that's where the opportunity to perform in a public

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way can engage conversation. And I guess your parents must have been

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aware of that too - maybe when they were on the beach with you as a

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young girl, or shopping in the supermarket - they might have seen

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people staring at you sometimes. But did they, in talking to you

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about all of this, ever say to you, "You know what, Aimee? You may want

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to make choices in life which leave you less exposed"? Or did they

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encourage you to be out there, up- front, in a sense, in people's

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faces with who you were? We didn't talk about it, Stephen. We didn't

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talk about it. My parents had bigger issues on their plate, like,

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you know, paying the mortgage and working, you know, two jobs. And my

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two younger brothers to raise. Than to worry about how secure my psyche

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was as a child. It was really kind of like "Get on with it. Stick up

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for yourself if you need to stick up for yourself. This is the

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reality of the world. People are gonna stare at you. What are you

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gonna do about it?" It was very much a culture of self-reliance.

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I've looked back at your record. You were a successful athlete, but

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you were doing, it seems to me, two different things. On one level, you

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were trying to compete against able-bodied athletes in running and

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jumping and all that sort of stuff. That same time, you were becoming a

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leading member of the American Paralympic team. I just wonder

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which meant more to you - trying to compete - and you were competing -

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against the able-bodied, or developing that career in the

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Paralympic team. I never saw them as separate. I had never met

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another amputee until my late teen years. The internet didn't kick in,

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really, until 1995, so the idea that you could sit down, as you do

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today, and type in "amputee" or "prosthetic" and have thousands of

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images with which to educate yourself and decide whether or not,

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you know, "Oh, there's a sporting event for me if I want to race

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against other amputees ." It just wasn't around for me. I remember

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being in second grade and my godmother called - "Quickly, turn

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on the telly to this morning news programme." There was a gymnast on

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who had her arm amputated from the elbow down, and she was doing flips

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and cartwheels. Of course, you had to write in to the show, cos she

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had some great prosthetic and it was the beginnings of an electric

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wrist. You had to write to the show, hope they would pass the letter on

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to your person - you're talking six months, perhaps. That was how you

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found out about new technology. The insurance situation in the United

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States is such that a lot of the new intelligent technology being

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created in the realm of prosthetics wasn't going to be covered any time

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soon. So the producethetist didn't have any way to let you know about

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new things. You developed, along with designers, the - I suppose

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what is the prototype of the "blade" that we now know with Oscar

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Pistorious and his feats on the track in the Paralympics and

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regular competition as well. Did you see the blade, and the fitting

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the blades to your legs, as the way that you could actually compete on

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a playing field with the able- bodied? Stephen, I competed on the

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playing field with athletes who didn't use prosthetics my whole

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life. I was on a state championship softball team for five years. I was

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a swimmer. I played - you name the sport, I played it. I was racing

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downhill skiing in high school, and winning. And I remember thinking,

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"I really shouldn't tell anybody that my legs are wooden, because I

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don't have freezing-cold feet to worry about going down the slopes."

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I always was looking at the perspective of how I could possibly

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use everything I had for the advantages it might hold. When you

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into second base and you've got wooden legs, and that girl knows

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what's coming at her, she usually gets out of the way! She so I

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actually had the stolen-bases record one year in my softball

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league. This is where it gets interesting. This is exactly where

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the argument over Oscar Pistorious and his blades is right now - the

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discussion is whether, in some respects, the technology gives the

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Paralympian an unfair advantage - this idea of the level playing

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field - perhaps the advantage these days lies with those who are able

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to employ technology with prosthetics? Well, it doesn't

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currently, but it will in the future. First of all, I have to

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address the idea of a level playing field. That's ridiculous in sport.

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We don't have such a thing. We don't care when Tyson Gay, at 5ft

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11in, lines up against Usain Bolt at 6ft 5in and how different that

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stride length is. We don't care so much when we look at a country that

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doesn't have the economic resources to have access to training and

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facilities and the best coaches and hyperbaric chambers to train.

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Understood, but those differences are, in the end, differences about

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the way in which what God gave, if you put it that way, us in terms of

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the human body - So it's technology versus carbon fiber and titanium?

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That seems to be the way the discuss is running right now. Is

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that meaningless? Yeah! Materials are materials. We have to ask

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ourselves as a society why we're fine with sport evolving in every

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other way - cycling, tennis, golf - they don't use the same materials

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they used 50 years ago. We allow pitchers in baseball to have

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muscles removed from their thighs and implanted in their elbows once

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nature has told them their limit is up on throwing. We don't care that

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Tiger Woods gets not one, but two lazeic surgeries with which to

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better his vision past what nature would have allowed. This is

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happening all across sport. With the specific case with regards to

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Oscar, it was ruled upon four years ago by the governing body - there

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is no definitive science, no peer- reviewed science, that points to

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any net advantage. I mean, there's a lot you can go into with respect

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of, "OK, hip swing versus force generated on the ground." At the

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end of the day, Stephen, name me one Olympian who has voluntarily

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amputated their legs for this so- called advantage. None. I'll name

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you one Paralympian - Thanhy Grey Thompson, in the UK who is

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concerned that, if athletes like Pistorious end up competing in the

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Olympics as well as the Paralympics, that it will end up devaluing the

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Paralympics - the Paralympics will end up looking like a sort of

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second-class event or a second- class prize to be sought. Can you

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see where she's coming from with that concern? I respect Tanny Grey

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Thompson as an athly, but I really disagree with her on this point.

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First of all, it's happened already. Mala Runyan ran in the Olympics and

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Paralympics, Brian McKeehan, a skier. Sarah Story from Great

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Britain may well compete in the Olympics and Paralympics next

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summer. There's a swimmer from South Africa with one leg amputated

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who swam in Beijing. There's a table-tennis player from Poland.

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It's happened already. It certainly hasn't diminished the value and the

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excitement of the Paralympic games thus far. It will only continue, I

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think, to raise the awareness of the Paralympic Games and to

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encourage more and more people to think of how they can test

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themselves against the best athletes in the world, period -

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that's gender, that's race, and that's whether or not you run with

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some kind of assisted medical device that you need to use in

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order to run. A final thought on the Paralympics - it's a simple one.

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You are the chief of the US team going to the Paralympics, and

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indeed the Olympics - a joint chief of the teams. I just wonder, when

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you look back at Beijing, the last Olympics, and look at the way the

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US media covered the Paralympics in particular, we saw NBC - who'd had

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more than 2,000 staff covering the Beijing Olympics - reduce their

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staffing for the Paralympics to just a handful of people, I think

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five or six people were left behind. Is it going to be different this

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time around? Do you think the American public and the American

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media rare really care about When I competed in the Paralympics

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as a teenager, I have not even heard of it. There was such little

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media awareness. The internet has done so much to advance that. It

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has actually been the last 5-6 years that the US Committee is

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house along the US Olympic Committee. Many people around the

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world see the Paralympics, I'm putting this in quotes, the

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disabled games, you have always spoken out about your dislike of

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this word, disabled. Explain to me why it matters so much to you that

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people, with all sorts of different physical impairments are not put in

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this collective gripping of disabled. It is not so much that I

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have an issue with that word, I have an issue with the laziness

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with which people use said. 60 years ago when someone required

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classes in order to see, they would have been considered disabled. --

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glasses. We do not think of it like that today. They are so on the

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present that we do not think of it as a disability any more. The

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average age of Americans, the larger segment of the population is

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over 65, in Europe as well. He replacements are becoming

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commonplace. If you look at that word, it is one word -- one thing

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to apply the word to a car that has broken down. It is another thing to

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apply it to a child who has their entire life ahead of them. This is

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the baggage that we want to saddle them with. We presume they are

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limited because their bodies or mines were differently to a typical

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one. By the way, what does that mean? -- minds work. Isn't it

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important to give as powerful as boys as possible to those who have

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there is a physical impairments? -- voice. By talking about the

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disabled and disabilities, in politics for example, it gives that

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particular group of people, a collective voice, a collective

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power they wouldn't have. I have never been a representative of a

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group that is so diverse. I have no idea -- no idea what it is like to

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have a visual impairment or a hearing impairment. What I know is

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my experience. What I would ask is that we refer to people as the

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individuals that they are. Let's go to your decision to go into

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modelling. That is a very particular field. That is where a

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very narrow aesthetic is imposed on people in that business. Why did

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you want to take that on? I thought that modelling and fashion

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advertising in general was just a great arena in which to have a

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conversation about a social issue which usually has such heavy

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overtones that it tends to not engage as many people in the

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conversation as should be engaged. Quite simply, it demands,

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particularly of the women inside that business, a look. If you look

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at the models we see around the world, they tend to be very tall,

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slim, flawless in their features. That is why people look at that

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industry and think it creates a false impression of the way people

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are. It probably does create a false impression. It is not meant

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to reflect the way people are, it is meant to be fantastic. One

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designer's crazy dream about what they see in the fantasy for spring

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2012. It is not meant to be representative. I really think

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about from Gandhi, you must be the change you wish to see in the world.

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If I did not like what I thought fashion was putting out as a

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representative of beauty, why not change the conversation? Why not

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get myself involved in the conversation? Which I have been

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lucky enough to do. You talk about the conversation as if you have the

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power to influence the people you work with, do you really? You say

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it is very important to cost of eight the healthy body image. --

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cultivate. The image of that young women seek, is not actually

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cultivating a healthy body image at all. This is where I was at a huge

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advantage. I never saw myself represented at in fashion

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advertising almost advertising. I was never influenced by those

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images of what I should be. I was empowered because of the lack of

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those images to create my an idea about what a beautiful model could

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be. Once I started having a public profile in the mid-1990s, people

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came up to me and said, you are a very beautiful girl, you do not

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look disabled. Either that is so interesting, I do not feel disabled.

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-- I thought. People were admitting something to me, the last against

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them paradigm. You do not feel like one of them, you feel like one of

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us. Of course, we are all one of us. Do you think the industry has

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become more open to different body images, body shapes? I think the

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industry has a long way to go. But I do think they have become more

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open in celebrating a broader range and diversity of the kinds of

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people that are indeed beautiful. That do indeed radiate something

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attractive. A lot of times people do not remember they have a lot

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more power in this argument than they think they do. You vote with

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your wallet. If you do not like the advertising that a company is

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giving you, do not buy the product. You have talked about the

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stereotypes that have greeted you when you have gone to do jobs, you

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do not look disabled. Is that also true of you're acting career? Is it

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difficult to get the parts that the not involve Aimee Mullins, the

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celebrated double amputee, rather than Aimee Mullins playing a

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character part in a movie or a play which has nothing to do with your

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particular back story? It has been an interesting journey. In the

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beginning, yes. Absolutely. This is another business that is usually

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marked by categories. The stereotypes of these seven carat --

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categories. Really he -- you have to be in the game for long enough

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worry your talent will speak for itself. Yesterday, I read for a

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lawyer, journalist and a CIA operative. None of them had any

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prosthetics. That has taken a few years. I had plenty of offers to

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play it landmine victims. None of which I could do. I had these

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lovely moments when producers or directors have seen, you do not

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have mobility issues for this role... Could I'd play a ballerina?

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Probably not. In the end I want to come back to the beginning, which

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is about your basic motivation. When you have casting directors

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offering you endless rolls as a land mine victim, part of the must

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think I do not want to be in this business? Part -- part of you.

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have to change this industry. That is what I think. There are actors

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out there who are contributing to this push. I have the opportunity

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