How is DISABILITY represented in the clip from 'A Touch of Frost'?

Whenever there is a disabled actor on television, us as an audience reacts in different ways. Some could feel uncomfortable watching them, some may not be fazed by the disability and some may feel sorrow for them. The audience are affected in different ways, usually based on the severity of the disability. Using a disabled actor can create a really powerful atmosphere within the TV Drama.

I am analysing the TV drama, ‘A touch Of Frost’, the character in this extract is Billy, who has Down syndrome. As we can see in the clip, police are looking for a girl named Trisha, and they believe that Billy may have something, or knows something about what has happened to the girl.

We first see Billy in the woods, he is quite muddy and has a few grazes and cuts which look fresh. In the background we see dark forests, but the main focus is on Billy as he is very well lit. We hear contrapuntal sound, as we see that Billy is disabled, so our first instinct is that he is innocent and wouldn’t cause any problems, and because of the lighting he seems innocent and maybe having a casual stroll through the woods, but we hear non-diegetic sound of creepy, and quite scary, ominous music. This makes the audience query on what has just happened to Billy and why he is so lit up.

The next scene is the inspector and Billy’s father talking in the hallway they are speaking in hush toned voices, and with a high angle shot, the camera looks shifty, as if the audience are eaves dropping into the conversation. The inspector says that Billy is ‘Mentally Subnormal’ which nowadays would be a derogatory term, but his father corrects the inspector and says that he is ‘handicapped’ which in my opinion is still offensive. Billy is treated as abnormal and therefore he is treated like a five year old. The inspector wants Billy’s father to come into the room with him, in case Frost does anything wrong or as he said ‘break any rules’. This scene is quite intense as it portrays innocence on Billy but also shows that he has no authority or power to have a say in this case.

When Frost enters the room he is shadowed, and Billy is still well lit, like the woods scene. This could suggest that Frost is a bad and evil character who is quite mysterious. Whereas Billy looks angelic and quite yellow lit, with strikes of innocence again, with the prominent cuts and grazes to his face.
Billy’s father is sat behind him, like he is protecting Billy, But Billy is still sat lower than the others. This gives the impression that he is vulnerable, and that he is in the wrong.

In addition to the high angle shot, Frost looks down on Billy. He starts talking to Billy in a condescending and patronising way implying that Billy is an outsider and almost seems pitied by him. Billy pleads his innocence, but Frost becomes frustrated that Billy isn’t listening to him and not participating with any of the questions and shows all the signs of his mood, such as raised eyebrows and deep sighs.

The editing is different to some other TV dramas, as this one isn’t fast pace, and made out of jump shots, but of quite a slow pace, which creates even more tension, and is more effective than jump shots. It leaves the audience longer to think about what has happened and to really sink in Billy’s character.

Overall the audience feels a slight confusion towards the situation as some may think Billy is innocent because of his disability but some could feel that he is guilty because of the mysteriousness that is occurring and the secretiveness.