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Edinburgh and the Duchess of Cambridge. -- Leicester. | :00:04. | :00:14. | |
Now it is time for HARDtalk. HARDtalk is in New York City, and | :00:14. | :00:18. | |
my guess today is a woman who has spent her life challenging the | :00:18. | :00:24. | |
assumptions that go with their labelled "physically disabled". | :00:24. | :00:28. | |
Aimee Mullins had both of her legs amputated below the knee when she | :00:28. | :00:33. | |
was just one-year-old. She went on to become a champion athlete, an | :00:33. | :00:37. | |
actor and a highly-paid model. She has been feted as an inspiration | :00:37. | :00:42. | |
across America. But what is the real lesson of the remarkable story | :00:42. | :00:52. | |
:00:52. | :01:08. | ||
Aimee Mullins, welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you. It is fair to say that | :01:08. | :01:12. | |
you made your name as an athlete, an athlete who starred in the | :01:12. | :01:18. | |
Paralympics and broke world records. I just wonder, in a way, do you | :01:18. | :01:22. | |
feel that athletics is weighed you could be the very best? No, not at | :01:22. | :01:28. | |
all. It is one of the areas where I felt I could be the very best. I | :01:28. | :01:33. | |
think my resistance to being put in a box and been tied up with a bow | :01:33. | :01:39. | |
has really been the one defining thing of my life and my career. I | :01:39. | :01:43. | |
thought it would be unlikely that sports would be the first place I | :01:43. | :01:48. | |
would make my name. Acting is really what I knew I wanted to do, | :01:49. | :01:55. | |
from my earliest memories. I was even recalling this morning, | :01:55. | :02:01. | |
because it is the bicentennial of dickens birthday, that by first | :02:01. | :02:10. | |
played on stage was Oliver Twist. - - Dickens' birthday. The joy and | :02:10. | :02:13. | |
the brush of that, it is the same thing as if you are walking into a | :02:13. | :02:16. | |
stadium, when you walk on to a stage to do a monologue. When you | :02:16. | :02:24. | |
are telling a story in front of 300 or 3,000 people. But here is what | :02:24. | :02:28. | |
strikes me about everything you have just described, way you get | :02:28. | :02:35. | |
your satisfactions from. Whether you get your satisfaction from the | :02:35. | :02:40. | |
stadium or the theatre or whatever, all of those are intensely exposed | :02:40. | :02:46. | |
places. And we have to begin by discussing the fact that from the | :02:46. | :02:50. | |
age of one, you were a double amputee. And yet you never shied | :02:50. | :02:58. | |
away from those physically exposing places. No, I have never shied away | :02:58. | :03:03. | |
from anything with that. I think I was a born storyteller. I realised | :03:03. | :03:06. | |
in the last fears that that is the common thread that links together | :03:06. | :03:14. | |
all of the things I have done. -- in the last few years. Whether it | :03:14. | :03:17. | |
is from sports, to really use in my body as a coat hanger in the | :03:18. | :03:22. | |
fashion world, to provoking conversations about beauty and the | :03:22. | :03:31. | |
human body and looking at advanced prostatic design, to the kind of | :03:31. | :03:37. | |
ancient art form of doing theatre. Storytelling has always been at the | :03:37. | :03:40. | |
heart of that. It is something I am comfortable doing and sovereign | :03:40. | :03:50. | |
alight doing. And it is being very private in a very public way. | :03:50. | :03:53. | |
you were growing up, and getting used to the idea that you have | :03:53. | :03:56. | |
particular challenges to face, because of what happened to you, | :03:56. | :04:01. | |
and what happened to your body and your legs, did you never, as a | :04:01. | :04:08. | |
youngster, want to avoid being watched by hundreds of people? | :04:08. | :04:14. | |
Being under the gaze of a wide audience? I think there was a | :04:14. | :04:18. | |
distinction in my mind between being stared out when the focus was | :04:18. | :04:28. | |
:04:28. | :04:28. | ||
my legs - but that certainly gave me some uncomfortable moments as a | :04:28. | :04:32. | |
child. You know the difference between an audience, whether it is | :04:32. | :04:35. | |
on the supermarket or on the beach, staring at you with a sense of | :04:35. | :04:42. | |
penetration read and fear. Did you remember that? Absolutely. I think | :04:42. | :04:50. | |
people are afraid of what they don't understand. The opportunity | :04:50. | :04:55. | |
to perform in a public way can engage conversation. I guess your | :04:55. | :05:01. | |
parents must have been aware of that, to? On the beach with you, or | :05:01. | :05:04. | |
in the supermarket, they must have seen people staring at you. But | :05:04. | :05:07. | |
when they were talking to you about all of this, did they ever say to | :05:07. | :05:14. | |
you, you know what, Aimee, you may want to take choices in life which | :05:14. | :05:19. | |
leave you less exposed? Or did they encourage you to be out there, to | :05:19. | :05:25. | |
be up in people's faces about who you were? We didn't talk about it. | :05:25. | :05:32. | |
My parents had be the issues on their plate, like paying the | :05:33. | :05:42. | |
:05:43. | :05:43. | ||
mortgage and working two jobs. They were more worried about that and | :05:43. | :05:49. | |
how secure my psyche was as a child. It was, sort of, get on with it. | :05:49. | :05:55. | |
Stick up for yourself, defend yourself. This is the reality of | :05:55. | :06:00. | |
the world. People are going to stare at you so deal with it. | :06:00. | :06:04. | |
have looked back at your record, and you were successful athlete, | :06:04. | :06:07. | |
but it seems to me that you were doing two different things. On one | :06:07. | :06:13. | |
level you were trying to compete against able-bodied athletes, in | :06:13. | :06:16. | |
running and jumping and all that sort of stuff, and at the same time | :06:16. | :06:22. | |
you were becoming a leading member of the American Paralympic team. | :06:22. | :06:29. | |
And I just wonder, which meant more to you? Trying to compete - you | :06:29. | :06:33. | |
were competing - against the able bodied, or developing that Korea in | :06:33. | :06:43. | |
:06:43. | :06:47. | ||
the Paralympic team? -- career. never saw them as separate. I had | :06:47. | :06:54. | |
never met a PoW Olympic athlete. The internet didn't cheat in until | :06:54. | :06:58. | |
1995 or so. So the idea that you could sit down, like you can today, | :06:58. | :07:07. | |
and tie-pin and beauty and have thousands of images to inform | :07:07. | :07:16. | |
yourself. -- type in the air beauty. I remember being in second grade, | :07:16. | :07:25. | |
and my godmother called. Turn on the TV, there was a genius on who | :07:25. | :07:34. | |
had her arm amputated, -- gymnast. And she was doing amazing flips and | :07:34. | :07:39. | |
cartwheels. You had to write into the shower and hope that the show | :07:39. | :07:43. | |
would pass along your letter to the person. We are talking, six months, | :07:43. | :07:48. | |
perhaps. That is how you found out about other people and new | :07:48. | :07:52. | |
technology in prosthetics. The insurance situation in the United | :07:52. | :07:55. | |
States means that a lot of the new technology being created in | :07:55. | :08:00. | |
prosthetics was not going to be covered any time soon. So the | :08:00. | :08:03. | |
prosthetics companies did not have any motivation to get to know about | :08:03. | :08:09. | |
new things. You develop, along with designers, what I suppose was the | :08:09. | :08:19. | |
:08:19. | :08:21. | ||
prototype of the blade that we now know it with from other but - like | :08:21. | :08:29. | |
athletes. Did you see the fitting of the blaze at your legs as a way | :08:29. | :08:32. | |
that you could actually compete on a playing field with the able | :08:32. | :08:38. | |
bodied? I competed on the playing field with athletes who did not use | :08:38. | :08:41. | |
prosthetics my whole life. I was on the state championship softball | :08:41. | :08:44. | |
team for five years, I was a swimmer, you name the sport, I | :08:44. | :08:53. | |
played it. And I remember thinking, I should not tell anybody that my | :08:53. | :08:56. | |
legs are wooden, because I do not have freezing cold feet to worry | :08:56. | :09:03. | |
about going down the slopes. I was always looking at the perspective | :09:03. | :09:06. | |
of how I could possibly use everything I had for the advantages | :09:06. | :09:14. | |
it might hold. When you slide into second place and you have wooden | :09:14. | :09:18. | |
legs, and that girl knows what is coming at her, she usually gets out | :09:18. | :09:21. | |
of the weight. I had the stolen bases record one year in my | :09:21. | :09:26. | |
softball League. This is interesting, because this is | :09:26. | :09:29. | |
exactly what the eye to it is right now with other power the big | :09:29. | :09:34. | |
athletes. The discussion is whether in some respects the technology | :09:34. | :09:44. | |
:09:44. | :09:45. | ||
gives the power Libyan an unfair advantage. -- para Libyan. -- | :09:45. | :09:55. | |
:09:55. | :09:56. | ||
Paralympian. The advantage, these days, lies with the people with | :09:56. | :10:00. | |
prosthetics. It does not at the moment but it will in the future. | :10:00. | :10:05. | |
But I want to talk about the level playing field. We do not worry | :10:05. | :10:10. | |
about it when a short guy is up against Usain Bolt. We do not worry | :10:10. | :10:13. | |
about it when somebody comes to the Olympics from a poor country | :10:14. | :10:17. | |
without the resources for the best training and coaches and hyperbaric | :10:17. | :10:24. | |
chambers to train in. Those differences, in the end, are | :10:24. | :10:30. | |
differences about the way in which what God gave us in terms of the | :10:30. | :10:40. | |
:10:40. | :10:45. | ||
human body... Say it is about training versus prosthetics. I | :10:45. | :10:49. | |
think materials are materials. I think we have to ask ourselves, as | :10:49. | :10:57. | |
a society, why we are OK with a sport developing in every other way. | :10:57. | :11:01. | |
Cycling, golf, whatever. They do not use the same materials they did | :11:01. | :11:10. | |
50 years ago. We have pictures and golfers having stuff implanted into | :11:10. | :11:15. | |
bad joints towards nature has told about that time is up. We do not | :11:15. | :11:18. | |
mind if Tiger Woods has laser surgery to better his vision beyond | :11:18. | :11:21. | |
what nature would have allowed. This is something that happens or | :11:21. | :11:27. | |
cross sport. Specifically with regard to Oscar, it was ruled upon | :11:27. | :11:31. | |
four years ago by the governing body. There is no definitive signs, | :11:31. | :11:37. | |
the purity and sides, that point to any net advantage. There is a lot | :11:37. | :11:45. | |
you can go into with respect to, say, hips swing versus what is on | :11:45. | :11:49. | |
the ground. But at the end of the day, name me one a Olympian who has | :11:49. | :11:56. | |
voluntary amputated that makes for this so-called advantage. None. | :11:56. | :12:02. | |
warned they knew one Paralympic a Olympian. Tony Thompson in the UK. | :12:02. | :12:11. | |
She is concerned that if athletes like Oscar end up competing in the | :12:11. | :12:15. | |
Olympics as well as the Paralympics, it will devalue the parapets. It | :12:15. | :12:19. | |
will end up looking like a second- class event or a second class prize. | :12:19. | :12:24. | |
Can you see where she is coming from with that concern? I respect | :12:24. | :12:27. | |
her as an athlete but I really disagree with her on this point. | :12:27. | :12:35. | |
First of all, it has happened already. A lot of people have been | :12:35. | :12:39. | |
in the Paralympics and the other bits. In fact, Great Britain has a | :12:39. | :12:43. | |
cyclist who made very well compete in both the Paralympics and the | :12:43. | :12:51. | |
Olympics next summer. There is a swimmer from South America with an | :12:51. | :12:55. | |
amputated leg he swam in both the Paralympics and the Olympics. It | :12:55. | :12:57. | |
has happened already and it certainly has not diminished the | :12:57. | :13:01. | |
value and the excitement of the power the big games thus far. It | :13:01. | :13:06. | |
will only continue, I think, to raise the awareness of the | :13:06. | :13:11. | |
Paralympic Games and to encourage more and more people to think of | :13:11. | :13:14. | |
how they can test themselves against the best athlete in the | :13:14. | :13:19. | |
world, period. That is gender, that his race, and that is whether or | :13:19. | :13:22. | |
not you run with some kind of assisted medical device that you | :13:22. | :13:32. | |
:13:32. | :13:44. | ||
When you look at the last Olympics that Beijing and the way that the | :13:44. | :13:53. | |
US media covered the Paralympics use. NBC, who had had 2000 staff | :13:53. | :13:59. | |
covering the Beijing Olympics reduce their staff for the | :13:59. | :14:06. | |
Paralympics to a handful - four or five people. Do you think it will | :14:06. | :14:12. | |
be different this time around? Do you think the American people | :14:12. | :14:21. | |
really care about Paralympics? teenager when I competed in the | :14:21. | :14:28. | |
Paralympics, I had never even heard of it. The internet has done so | :14:28. | :14:35. | |
much to advance that. It has only been in the last five or six years | :14:35. | :14:39. | |
that the Paralympics committee is housed alongside the Olympics | :14:39. | :14:45. | |
Committee in the US. Many people around the world see the | :14:45. | :14:53. | |
Paralympics as, and I am putting this in quotes, the disabled games. | :14:53. | :14:59. | |
You have always spoken out with a great deal of passion about your | :14:59. | :15:05. | |
disdain for this word, disabled. Tried to explain to me why it | :15:05. | :15:10. | |
matters to you that people with all sorts of different physical issues | :15:10. | :15:19. | |
are and not put into these collective definition of, disabled. | :15:19. | :15:27. | |
I have an issue with the laziness of people who use that word. People | :15:27. | :15:34. | |
who had glasses 60 years ago would have been considered disabled. | :15:34. | :15:39. | |
Today, the prospect of I glasses or contact lenses is so omnipresent | :15:39. | :15:49. | |
:15:49. | :15:50. | ||
that we no longer think of it as a disability. The average age of | :15:50. | :15:54. | |
Americans - we are the largest segment of the American population | :15:54. | :16:01. | |
over the age of 65. Hit replacements, and knee replacements | :16:01. | :16:09. | |
- all of the things are becoming commonplace. It is one thing to | :16:09. | :16:14. | |
apply the word disabled to a car which has broken down. One thing to | :16:14. | :16:24. | |
apply that to a child with their entire life ahead of them. We | :16:24. | :16:28. | |
automatically assumed they are Ltd just because their bodies or mines | :16:28. | :16:34. | |
operate in a different way. I grant you is complicated, but isn't it | :16:35. | :16:40. | |
important to give as powerful a voice as possible to those who have | :16:40. | :16:45. | |
different forms of physical impairment - sight, hearing, | :16:45. | :16:53. | |
mobility, whatever. By talking about the disabled and disabilities, | :16:53. | :16:58. | |
in politics for example, it gives that particular group of people a | :16:58. | :17:02. | |
collective voice and may be a collective power that otherwise | :17:02. | :17:08. | |
they would not have. First of all, I have never been a representative | :17:09. | :17:14. | |
of a group that is so diverse. I have no idea what it is like to | :17:14. | :17:20. | |
have a visual or a hearing impairment or to have one flesh and | :17:20. | :17:27. | |
bone leg, for that matter. What I know is my experience. I think we | :17:27. | :17:37. | |
:17:37. | :17:37. | ||
should refer to people as the individuals they are. Take your | :17:37. | :17:42. | |
work as a model. A very narrow as that it is imposed on people in | :17:42. | :17:49. | |
that business. Why do you want to take that on? I thought that | :17:49. | :17:54. | |
modelling and fashion at baptising was a great arena to have a | :17:54. | :18:00. | |
conversation about a social issue that usually has such heavy | :18:00. | :18:05. | |
overtones that it does not engage as many people in the conversation | :18:05. | :18:13. | |
as should be engaged. It demands of, particularly the women, inside it, | :18:13. | :18:20. | |
a look. The models we see around us across the world tend to be tall, | :18:20. | :18:26. | |
slim, flawless in their features. That is why people look at that | :18:26. | :18:30. | |
industry and think that it creates a false impression of the way | :18:30. | :18:38. | |
people up. It probably does, but it is not meant to reflect the way | :18:38. | :18:43. | |
people are. It is meant to be fantastical. It is meant to reflect | :18:43. | :18:53. | |
:18:53. | :18:54. | ||
in many cases one designer's crazy dream about what they see fall, for | :18:54. | :19:00. | |
instance, spring 2012. I think about the quote from Gandhi: You | :19:00. | :19:10. | |
:19:10. | :19:11. | ||
must be the changed you wish to see in the world. Why not change the | :19:11. | :19:16. | |
conversation? Why not get myself involved in the conversation? I | :19:16. | :19:22. | |
have been lucky enough to do that. You talk about it as a conversation | :19:22. | :19:26. | |
as if you have the power to influence the people that you work | :19:26. | :19:32. | |
with. But do you? You say it is important to cultivate over the | :19:32. | :19:42. | |
:19:42. | :19:43. | ||
body image. Their bodies that people see in advertising do not | :19:44. | :19:49. | |
actually cultivate a healthy body image at all. This is where I am | :19:49. | :19:54. | |
probably at an advantage because I never saw myself represented in | :19:54. | :20:01. | |
fashion advertising, or indeed in any advertising. I was never | :20:01. | :20:06. | |
besieged by those images as an idea of what I should be. I was in power | :20:06. | :20:13. | |
were because of the lack of those images. I could create my own id of | :20:13. | :20:19. | |
what beautiful could be. One so started having a public profile in | :20:19. | :20:25. | |
the mid-nineties people came up to me and said, you are a beautiful | :20:25. | :20:31. | |
girl. You do not look disabled. Interesting, because I do not feel | :20:31. | :20:36. | |
disabled. On that was the first time I realise that people were | :20:36. | :20:44. | |
admitting something to me about the us verses them paradigm. You do not | :20:44. | :20:49. | |
feel like one of them. You feel like one of ours. And of course, | :20:50. | :20:57. | |
you are one of us. Do you think the industry has become more open to | :20:57. | :21:07. | |
:21:07. | :21:08. | ||
different body shapes, looks, types of people? Yes, it is celebrating a | :21:08. | :21:14. | |
broader range and diversity of people who are beautiful and | :21:14. | :21:19. | |
radiate something attractive. People did not remember they have a | :21:19. | :21:24. | |
lot more power in this argument than they think they do. If you do | :21:24. | :21:29. | |
not like the kind of advertising a company gives you, do not buy their | :21:29. | :21:36. | |
products. We have talked about some of these stereotypes which have | :21:36. | :21:42. | |
greeted you when you went for a job or when people commented on your | :21:42. | :21:48. | |
not looking disabled etcetera. Is that true of your acting career? | :21:48. | :21:58. | |
:21:58. | :21:58. | ||
Easy difficult for you to get the parts which do not involve having | :21:58. | :22:04. | |
artificial legs, for instance? You may find yourself playing parts | :22:04. | :22:12. | |
which have nothing to do with your own particular back story? It is | :22:12. | :22:21. | |
another business which is hugely marked by categories. Stereotypes | :22:21. | :22:29. | |
of certain categories. You have to be in the game long enough - it is | :22:29. | :22:33. | |
their last man standing kind of game - way your talents speaks for | :22:33. | :22:43. | |
:22:43. | :22:46. | ||
itself. That may happen for me. Yesterday I read for a journalist | :22:46. | :22:56. | |
:22:56. | :23:04. | ||
and at a CIA operative, none of whom had any prosthetic parts. My | :23:04. | :23:14. | |
:23:14. | :23:17. | ||
first twirls Any Hercule Poirot episode. -- my first part was in an | :23:17. | :23:27. | |
:23:27. | :23:27. | ||
episode of Hercule Poirot. Even as you tell me these stories, at the | :23:27. | :23:34. | |
end I want to come back to the beginning - your basic motivation. | :23:34. | :23:41. | |
When casting people of the year end its roles as a landmine victim, it | :23:41. | :23:45. | |
seems like sometimes you might say, I do not want to be in this | :23:45. | :23:53. | |
business. But I have to change this industry, that is what I think. I | :23:53. | :24:01. | |
have an opportunity. Other actors are also contributing to this | :24:01. | :24:07. |