History Main / InspirationallyDisadvantaged

* ''Literature/JourneyToChaos'' has a in-universe example. One of the reasons Dengel is looked upon so favorably by humans is that he became a powerful mage despite possessing a magical disorder called Low Mana Inhibition, which makes controlling mana substantially harder. Thus, he is the "super crip". Eric, who knows him to be an arrogant jerkass, is not at all inspired.

* ''TheRinger'' is a film about a guy who fakes being mentally challenged in order to join and rig the Special Olympics. Surprisingly, it manages to avoid being as disparaging to the disabled as one would expect from the premise, but it's also been praised for not going in the other direction, either. The Olympians are treated more like actual people ([[EnforcedMethodActing it helps that people with actual mental disabilities were hired to play them]]) crowd-favorite Jimmy Washington [[SmallNameBigEgo has a massive ego]] and is hated by the other Olympians, and uses their disabilities for one or two jokes (like when main character Steve has to break out a whiteboard and provide visual aids to explain his plan once he's caught) while the Olympians also get to crack a few jokes of their own.

* A rather blatant example of "Type C" can be seen in a Colorado made short film ''Menschen'' that has been making rounds on the festival circuit. It deals with a group of runaway Nazis in the last days of World War II who come across a sickly sweet boy with Down Syndrome who is just so precocious and adorable, he redeems their evil genocidal hearts and makes them see the error of their ways through the power of love. What makes this even more obnoxious is that the filmmakers unknowingly repeated a joke from ''AmericanDad,'' but under the pretense of making a serious historical drama.

See also IdiotSavant, TheRainman, WaifProphet, and WhoopiEpiphanySpeech. SorryBillyButYouJustDontHaveLegs is essentially the inversion of this trope. Also somewhat related to LittlestCancerPatient. Can result in {{Glurge}} if handled poorly. Compare GracefulInTheirElement.

* Blair's cousin Geri on ''Series/TheFactsOfLife''.
** She was played by Geri Jewell, an actress and stand-up comedienne who, like "Cousin Geri", has cerebal palsy. She was the first performer with a disability to have a recurring role in a TV series. Cousin Geri was treated as inspirational by some of the girls, but Cousin Geri herself was rather snarky about her condition as well as not having much use for being seen as anything but a person. Jewell continued as a recurring regular for four years; when, in the sixth season, the showrunners wanted Cousin Geri to only appear in Very Special Episodes once a season, Jewell quit.

** She was played by Geri Jewell, an actress and stand-up comedienne who, like "Cousin Geri", has cerebal palsy. She was the first performer with a disability to have a recurring role in a TV series. Cousin Geri was treated as a Type A for four years; when, in the sixth season, the showrunners wanted Cousin Geri to only appear in Very Special Episodes once a season, Jewell quit.

* Blair's cousin Gerry on ''Series/TheFactsOfLife''.

* {{Bollywood}} uses this in their recent movies in order to [[OscarBait win a Filmfare Award]]. Blind Michelle [=McNally=] (played by Rani Mukherjee) in 2005's ''Black'' and mentally-disabled Rohit (played by Hrithik Roshan) in 2003's ''Koi...Mil Gaya'' are examples. Naturally, they won.

* Taken to the point of absurdity in TomWaits' "Eyeball Kid". The narrator is a carnival barker trying to talk up a sideshow performer who seems to be just a disembodied eye. As the song progresses, the Eyeball Kid's tale moves from the gritty to the inspirational to the downright messianic, all to sell tickets.

* ''Film/TropicThunder'' mocks this trope with the OscarBait FilmWithinAFilm ''Simple Jack''. It wound up backfiring on its star, Tugg Speedman, and it came to be viewed as one of the worst films of all time (though it's [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff inexplicably popular among Golden Triangle drug lords]]). Kirk Lazarus attributes the film's failure to the fact that the character was portrayed as ''too'' mentally disabled (or, in his parlance, Tugg "went full retard" in his performance) and lacking the "inspirational" part of this trope, citing ''IAmSam'' as an example. As a result, Tugg's performance [[UnfortunateImplications was just plain insulting and uncomfortable to watch]].

* In ''Literature/The Fault in our Stars'', Isaac [[LampshadedTrope lampshades]] this after he becomes blind by jokingly saying, "come over here so I can examine your face with my hands and see deeper into your soul than a sighted person ever could."

* Felix from ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible''. Kim [[CompressedVice treats him as a disadvantaged boy]] through the episode, until [[FantasticAesop she learns to accept]] that [[CoolChair he]] [[AllUpToYou kicks]] [[{{Chickification}} ass]].
** Helps when your mum builds you a wheelchair capable of flying and includes heavy weapons.
*** It's also played for laughs with Ron, who treats Felix like any other guy. Felix is glad Ron doesn't give a wet slap, but it seriously bugs Kim.

* On ''Series/MyNameIsEarl'', the one-legged Didi has [[MeetCute a chance meeting]] with a young man who has lost both of his legs and one of his arms, and the two fall in LoveAtFirstSight. He's always willing to protect Didi, especially from Earl (who wronged her in the past, and whom she resents.) He's kind of a subversion, though, because he beats up Earl before the latter even says anything.
--> '''Earl''': "And as handi-capable as one-legged Didi was, her no-legged boyfriend was even handi-capabler."

* ''{{ER}}'''s Kerry Weaver. Despite walking with a crutch throughout most of her time on the show (due to congenital hip dysplasia), she was consistently portrayed as an excellent physician. Even more remarkable, this was in a specialty like Emergency Medicine which requires considerable mobility. As well, her abrasive personality, rather than warm and fuzzy, might even subvert this example.
* ''{{ER}}''' also featured a small arc in an early season where Peter Benton discovered that his son was deaf. He met a doctor who was marketed as a "deaf specialist" of sorts only to discover that the doctor herself was deaf and relied on an interpreter for communication. The doctor had been profoundly deaf since she was young and still managed to complete medical school in a time where treating the disabled like everyone else was uncommon. She slightly invokes this trope in the sense that her character is primarily used as an example to Peter that being deaf is not the end of the world, but also to other staff as well.

* A rather blatant example of "Type C" can be seen in a Colorado made short film ''Menschen'' that has been making rounds on the festival circuit. It deals with a group of runaway Nazis who come across a sickly sweet boy with Down Syndrome who is just so precocious and adorable, he redeems their evil genocidal hearts and makes them see the error of their ways through the power of love. What makes this even more obnoxious is that the filmmakers unknowingly repeated a joke from ''AmericanDad!''

* Averted with Nathan, the one-legged kid from ''WebComic/TheScumthorpeFiles''. He becomes furious when people call him "inspiring" or "inspirational" for doing simple everyday tasks, and can't stand to be [[DontYouDarePityMe! pitied for his disability.]]

* One episode of ''Series/SavedByTheBell'' had Zack falling for a girl who uses a wheelchair, and part of the plot included the gang putting on a wheelchair basketball game as a fundraiser. The episode has a similar subversion to the ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' examples below, as the girl berates Zack for calling attention to her disability to the crowd after the game.

* Similarly spoofed with WeirdAlYankovic's "Mr. Frump in the Iron Lung", who he routinely visits to receive advice from, getting only the sound of the iron lung as a reply.