:00:04. > :00:14.Edinburgh and the Duchess of Cambridge. -- Leicester.
:00:14. > :00:18.Now it is time for HARDtalk. HARDtalk is in New York City, and
:00:18. > :00:24.my guess today is a woman who has spent her life challenging the
:00:24. > :00:28.assumptions that go with their labelled "physically disabled".
:00:28. > :00:33.Aimee Mullins had both of her legs amputated below the knee when she
:00:33. > :00:37.was just one-year-old. She went on to become a champion athlete, an
:00:37. > :00:42.actor and a highly-paid model. She has been feted as an inspiration
:00:42. > :00:52.across America. But what is the real lesson of the remarkable story
:00:52. > :01:08.
:01:08. > :01:12.Aimee Mullins, welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you. It is fair to say that
:01:12. > :01:18.you made your name as an athlete, an athlete who starred in the
:01:18. > :01:22.Paralympics and broke world records. I just wonder, in a way, do you
:01:22. > :01:28.feel that athletics is weighed you could be the very best? No, not at
:01:28. > :01:33.all. It is one of the areas where I felt I could be the very best. I
:01:33. > :01:39.think my resistance to being put in a box and been tied up with a bow
:01:39. > :01:43.has really been the one defining thing of my life and my career. I
:01:43. > :01:48.thought it would be unlikely that sports would be the first place I
:01:49. > :01:55.would make my name. Acting is really what I knew I wanted to do,
:01:55. > :02:01.from my earliest memories. I was even recalling this morning,
:02:01. > :02:10.because it is the bicentennial of dickens birthday, that by first
:02:10. > :02:13.played on stage was Oliver Twist. - - Dickens' birthday. The joy and
:02:13. > :02:16.the brush of that, it is the same thing as if you are walking into a
:02:16. > :02:24.stadium, when you walk on to a stage to do a monologue. When you
:02:24. > :02:28.are telling a story in front of 300 or 3,000 people. But here is what
:02:28. > :02:35.strikes me about everything you have just described, way you get
:02:35. > :02:40.your satisfactions from. Whether you get your satisfaction from the
:02:40. > :02:46.stadium or the theatre or whatever, all of those are intensely exposed
:02:46. > :02:50.places. And we have to begin by discussing the fact that from the
:02:50. > :02:58.age of one, you were a double amputee. And yet you never shied
:02:58. > :03:03.away from those physically exposing places. No, I have never shied away
:03:03. > :03:06.from anything with that. I think I was a born storyteller. I realised
:03:06. > :03:14.in the last fears that that is the common thread that links together
:03:14. > :03:17.all of the things I have done. -- in the last few years. Whether it
:03:18. > :03:22.is from sports, to really use in my body as a coat hanger in the
:03:22. > :03:31.fashion world, to provoking conversations about beauty and the
:03:31. > :03:37.human body and looking at advanced prostatic design, to the kind of
:03:37. > :03:40.ancient art form of doing theatre. Storytelling has always been at the
:03:40. > :03:50.heart of that. It is something I am comfortable doing and sovereign
:03:50. > :03:53.alight doing. And it is being very private in a very public way.
:03:53. > :03:56.you were growing up, and getting used to the idea that you have
:03:56. > :04:01.particular challenges to face, because of what happened to you,
:04:01. > :04:08.and what happened to your body and your legs, did you never, as a
:04:08. > :04:14.youngster, want to avoid being watched by hundreds of people?
:04:14. > :04:18.Being under the gaze of a wide audience? I think there was a
:04:18. > :04:28.distinction in my mind between being stared out when the focus was
:04:28. > :04:28.
:04:28. > :04:32.my legs - but that certainly gave me some uncomfortable moments as a
:04:32. > :04:35.child. You know the difference between an audience, whether it is
:04:35. > :04:42.on the supermarket or on the beach, staring at you with a sense of
:04:42. > :04:50.penetration read and fear. Did you remember that? Absolutely. I think
:04:50. > :04:55.people are afraid of what they don't understand. The opportunity
:04:55. > :05:01.to perform in a public way can engage conversation. I guess your
:05:01. > :05:04.parents must have been aware of that, to? On the beach with you, or
:05:04. > :05:07.in the supermarket, they must have seen people staring at you. But
:05:07. > :05:14.when they were talking to you about all of this, did they ever say to
:05:14. > :05:19.you, you know what, Aimee, you may want to take choices in life which
:05:19. > :05:25.leave you less exposed? Or did they encourage you to be out there, to
:05:25. > :05:32.be up in people's faces about who you were? We didn't talk about it.
:05:33. > :05:42.My parents had be the issues on their plate, like paying the
:05:43. > :05:43.
:05:43. > :05:49.mortgage and working two jobs. They were more worried about that and
:05:49. > :05:55.how secure my psyche was as a child. It was, sort of, get on with it.
:05:55. > :06:00.Stick up for yourself, defend yourself. This is the reality of
:06:00. > :06:04.the world. People are going to stare at you so deal with it.
:06:04. > :06:07.have looked back at your record, and you were successful athlete,
:06:07. > :06:13.but it seems to me that you were doing two different things. On one
:06:13. > :06:16.level you were trying to compete against able-bodied athletes, in
:06:16. > :06:22.running and jumping and all that sort of stuff, and at the same time
:06:22. > :06:29.you were becoming a leading member of the American Paralympic team.
:06:29. > :06:33.And I just wonder, which meant more to you? Trying to compete - you
:06:33. > :06:43.were competing - against the able bodied, or developing that Korea in
:06:43. > :06:47.
:06:47. > :06:54.the Paralympic team? -- career. never saw them as separate. I had
:06:54. > :06:58.never met a PoW Olympic athlete. The internet didn't cheat in until
:06:58. > :07:07.1995 or so. So the idea that you could sit down, like you can today,
:07:07. > :07:16.and tie-pin and beauty and have thousands of images to inform
:07:16. > :07:25.yourself. -- type in the air beauty. I remember being in second grade,
:07:25. > :07:34.and my godmother called. Turn on the TV, there was a genius on who
:07:34. > :07:39.had her arm amputated, -- gymnast. And she was doing amazing flips and
:07:39. > :07:43.cartwheels. You had to write into the shower and hope that the show
:07:43. > :07:48.would pass along your letter to the person. We are talking, six months,
:07:48. > :07:52.perhaps. That is how you found out about other people and new
:07:52. > :07:55.technology in prosthetics. The insurance situation in the United
:07:55. > :08:00.States means that a lot of the new technology being created in
:08:00. > :08:03.prosthetics was not going to be covered any time soon. So the
:08:03. > :08:09.prosthetics companies did not have any motivation to get to know about
:08:09. > :08:19.new things. You develop, along with designers, what I suppose was the
:08:19. > :08:21.
:08:21. > :08:29.prototype of the blade that we now know it with from other but - like
:08:29. > :08:32.athletes. Did you see the fitting of the blaze at your legs as a way
:08:32. > :08:38.that you could actually compete on a playing field with the able
:08:38. > :08:41.bodied? I competed on the playing field with athletes who did not use
:08:41. > :08:44.prosthetics my whole life. I was on the state championship softball
:08:44. > :08:53.team for five years, I was a swimmer, you name the sport, I
:08:53. > :08:56.played it. And I remember thinking, I should not tell anybody that my
:08:56. > :09:03.legs are wooden, because I do not have freezing cold feet to worry
:09:03. > :09:06.about going down the slopes. I was always looking at the perspective
:09:06. > :09:14.of how I could possibly use everything I had for the advantages
:09:14. > :09:18.it might hold. When you slide into second place and you have wooden
:09:18. > :09:21.legs, and that girl knows what is coming at her, she usually gets out
:09:21. > :09:26.of the weight. I had the stolen bases record one year in my
:09:26. > :09:29.softball League. This is interesting, because this is
:09:29. > :09:34.exactly what the eye to it is right now with other power the big
:09:34. > :09:44.athletes. The discussion is whether in some respects the technology
:09:44. > :09:45.
:09:45. > :09:55.gives the power Libyan an unfair advantage. -- para Libyan. --
:09:55. > :09:56.
:09:56. > :10:00.Paralympian. The advantage, these days, lies with the people with
:10:00. > :10:05.prosthetics. It does not at the moment but it will in the future.
:10:05. > :10:10.But I want to talk about the level playing field. We do not worry
:10:10. > :10:13.about it when a short guy is up against Usain Bolt. We do not worry
:10:14. > :10:17.about it when somebody comes to the Olympics from a poor country
:10:17. > :10:24.without the resources for the best training and coaches and hyperbaric
:10:24. > :10:30.chambers to train in. Those differences, in the end, are
:10:30. > :10:40.differences about the way in which what God gave us in terms of the
:10:40. > :10:45.
:10:45. > :10:49.human body... Say it is about training versus prosthetics. I
:10:49. > :10:57.think materials are materials. I think we have to ask ourselves, as
:10:57. > :11:01.a society, why we are OK with a sport developing in every other way.
:11:01. > :11:10.Cycling, golf, whatever. They do not use the same materials they did
:11:10. > :11:15.50 years ago. We have pictures and golfers having stuff implanted into
:11:15. > :11:18.bad joints towards nature has told about that time is up. We do not
:11:18. > :11:21.mind if Tiger Woods has laser surgery to better his vision beyond
:11:21. > :11:27.what nature would have allowed. This is something that happens or
:11:27. > :11:31.cross sport. Specifically with regard to Oscar, it was ruled upon
:11:31. > :11:37.four years ago by the governing body. There is no definitive signs,
:11:37. > :11:45.the purity and sides, that point to any net advantage. There is a lot
:11:45. > :11:49.you can go into with respect to, say, hips swing versus what is on
:11:49. > :11:56.the ground. But at the end of the day, name me one a Olympian who has
:11:56. > :12:02.voluntary amputated that makes for this so-called advantage. None.
:12:02. > :12:11.warned they knew one Paralympic a Olympian. Tony Thompson in the UK.
:12:11. > :12:15.She is concerned that if athletes like Oscar end up competing in the
:12:15. > :12:19.Olympics as well as the Paralympics, it will devalue the parapets. It
:12:19. > :12:24.will end up looking like a second- class event or a second class prize.
:12:24. > :12:27.Can you see where she is coming from with that concern? I respect
:12:27. > :12:35.her as an athlete but I really disagree with her on this point.
:12:35. > :12:39.First of all, it has happened already. A lot of people have been
:12:39. > :12:43.in the Paralympics and the other bits. In fact, Great Britain has a
:12:43. > :12:51.cyclist who made very well compete in both the Paralympics and the
:12:51. > :12:55.Olympics next summer. There is a swimmer from South America with an
:12:55. > :12:57.amputated leg he swam in both the Paralympics and the Olympics. It
:12:57. > :13:01.has happened already and it certainly has not diminished the
:13:01. > :13:06.value and the excitement of the power the big games thus far. It
:13:06. > :13:11.will only continue, I think, to raise the awareness of the
:13:11. > :13:14.Paralympic Games and to encourage more and more people to think of
:13:14. > :13:19.how they can test themselves against the best athlete in the
:13:19. > :13:22.world, period. That is gender, that his race, and that is whether or
:13:22. > :13:32.not you run with some kind of assisted medical device that you
:13:32. > :13:44.
:13:44. > :13:53.When you look at the last Olympics that Beijing and the way that the
:13:53. > :13:59.US media covered the Paralympics use. NBC, who had had 2000 staff
:13:59. > :14:06.covering the Beijing Olympics reduce their staff for the
:14:06. > :14:12.Paralympics to a handful - four or five people. Do you think it will
:14:12. > :14:21.be different this time around? Do you think the American people
:14:21. > :14:28.really care about Paralympics? teenager when I competed in the
:14:28. > :14:35.Paralympics, I had never even heard of it. The internet has done so
:14:35. > :14:39.much to advance that. It has only been in the last five or six years
:14:39. > :14:45.that the Paralympics committee is housed alongside the Olympics
:14:45. > :14:53.Committee in the US. Many people around the world see the
:14:53. > :14:59.Paralympics as, and I am putting this in quotes, the disabled games.
:14:59. > :15:05.You have always spoken out with a great deal of passion about your
:15:05. > :15:10.disdain for this word, disabled. Tried to explain to me why it
:15:10. > :15:19.matters to you that people with all sorts of different physical issues
:15:19. > :15:27.are and not put into these collective definition of, disabled.
:15:27. > :15:34.I have an issue with the laziness of people who use that word. People
:15:34. > :15:39.who had glasses 60 years ago would have been considered disabled.
:15:39. > :15:49.Today, the prospect of I glasses or contact lenses is so omnipresent
:15:49. > :15:50.
:15:50. > :15:54.that we no longer think of it as a disability. The average age of
:15:54. > :16:01.Americans - we are the largest segment of the American population
:16:01. > :16:09.over the age of 65. Hit replacements, and knee replacements
:16:09. > :16:14.- all of the things are becoming commonplace. It is one thing to
:16:14. > :16:24.apply the word disabled to a car which has broken down. One thing to
:16:24. > :16:28.apply that to a child with their entire life ahead of them. We
:16:28. > :16:34.automatically assumed they are Ltd just because their bodies or mines
:16:35. > :16:40.operate in a different way. I grant you is complicated, but isn't it
:16:40. > :16:45.important to give as powerful a voice as possible to those who have
:16:45. > :16:53.different forms of physical impairment - sight, hearing,
:16:53. > :16:58.mobility, whatever. By talking about the disabled and disabilities,
:16:58. > :17:02.in politics for example, it gives that particular group of people a
:17:02. > :17:08.collective voice and may be a collective power that otherwise
:17:09. > :17:14.they would not have. First of all, I have never been a representative
:17:14. > :17:20.of a group that is so diverse. I have no idea what it is like to
:17:20. > :17:27.have a visual or a hearing impairment or to have one flesh and
:17:27. > :17:37.bone leg, for that matter. What I know is my experience. I think we
:17:37. > :17:37.
:17:37. > :17:42.should refer to people as the individuals they are. Take your
:17:42. > :17:49.work as a model. A very narrow as that it is imposed on people in
:17:49. > :17:54.that business. Why do you want to take that on? I thought that
:17:54. > :18:00.modelling and fashion at baptising was a great arena to have a
:18:00. > :18:05.conversation about a social issue that usually has such heavy
:18:05. > :18:13.overtones that it does not engage as many people in the conversation
:18:13. > :18:20.as should be engaged. It demands of, particularly the women, inside it,
:18:20. > :18:26.a look. The models we see around us across the world tend to be tall,
:18:26. > :18:30.slim, flawless in their features. That is why people look at that
:18:30. > :18:38.industry and think that it creates a false impression of the way
:18:38. > :18:43.people up. It probably does, but it is not meant to reflect the way
:18:43. > :18:53.people are. It is meant to be fantastical. It is meant to reflect
:18:53. > :18:54.
:18:54. > :19:00.in many cases one designer's crazy dream about what they see fall, for
:19:00. > :19:10.instance, spring 2012. I think about the quote from Gandhi: You
:19:10. > :19:11.
:19:11. > :19:16.must be the changed you wish to see in the world. Why not change the
:19:16. > :19:22.conversation? Why not get myself involved in the conversation? I
:19:22. > :19:26.have been lucky enough to do that. You talk about it as a conversation
:19:26. > :19:32.as if you have the power to influence the people that you work
:19:32. > :19:42.with. But do you? You say it is important to cultivate over the
:19:42. > :19:43.
:19:44. > :19:49.body image. Their bodies that people see in advertising do not
:19:49. > :19:54.actually cultivate a healthy body image at all. This is where I am
:19:54. > :20:01.probably at an advantage because I never saw myself represented in
:20:01. > :20:06.fashion advertising, or indeed in any advertising. I was never
:20:06. > :20:13.besieged by those images as an idea of what I should be. I was in power
:20:13. > :20:19.were because of the lack of those images. I could create my own id of
:20:19. > :20:25.what beautiful could be. One so started having a public profile in
:20:25. > :20:31.the mid-nineties people came up to me and said, you are a beautiful
:20:31. > :20:36.girl. You do not look disabled. Interesting, because I do not feel
:20:36. > :20:44.disabled. On that was the first time I realise that people were
:20:44. > :20:49.admitting something to me about the us verses them paradigm. You do not
:20:50. > :20:57.feel like one of them. You feel like one of ours. And of course,
:20:57. > :21:07.you are one of us. Do you think the industry has become more open to
:21:07. > :21:08.
:21:08. > :21:14.different body shapes, looks, types of people? Yes, it is celebrating a
:21:14. > :21:19.broader range and diversity of people who are beautiful and
:21:19. > :21:24.radiate something attractive. People did not remember they have a
:21:24. > :21:29.lot more power in this argument than they think they do. If you do
:21:29. > :21:36.not like the kind of advertising a company gives you, do not buy their
:21:36. > :21:42.products. We have talked about some of these stereotypes which have
:21:42. > :21:48.greeted you when you went for a job or when people commented on your
:21:48. > :21:58.not looking disabled etcetera. Is that true of your acting career?
:21:58. > :21:58.
:21:58. > :22:04.Easy difficult for you to get the parts which do not involve having
:22:04. > :22:12.artificial legs, for instance? You may find yourself playing parts
:22:12. > :22:21.which have nothing to do with your own particular back story? It is
:22:21. > :22:29.another business which is hugely marked by categories. Stereotypes
:22:29. > :22:33.of certain categories. You have to be in the game long enough - it is
:22:33. > :22:43.their last man standing kind of game - way your talents speaks for
:22:43. > :22:46.
:22:46. > :22:56.itself. That may happen for me. Yesterday I read for a journalist
:22:56. > :23:04.
:23:04. > :23:14.and at a CIA operative, none of whom had any prosthetic parts. My
:23:14. > :23:17.
:23:17. > :23:27.first twirls Any Hercule Poirot episode. -- my first part was in an
:23:27. > :23:27.
:23:27. > :23:34.episode of Hercule Poirot. Even as you tell me these stories, at the
:23:34. > :23:41.end I want to come back to the beginning - your basic motivation.
:23:41. > :23:45.When casting people of the year end its roles as a landmine victim, it
:23:45. > :23:53.seems like sometimes you might say, I do not want to be in this
:23:53. > :24:01.business. But I have to change this industry, that is what I think. I
:24:01. > :24:07.have an opportunity. Other actors are also contributing to this