Wright State connected to reality series ‘Push Girls’

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California sunshine. Hollywood houses. A-list nightclubs. Stories of sex and relationships.

And car crashes. And wheelchairs.

That’s what an audience of students, faculty and community members saw at Wright State University this May, during a special screening of the critically acclaimed TV docu-series “Push Girls.” The show highlights four outspoken women living in wheelchairs in Los Angeles. By accident or illness, all four women in the series have been paralyzed from the neck or the waist down.

Airing Monday nights on the Sundance Channel, the episodes document their lives, loves, joys and challenges as women and as people who depend on wheelchairs and other support systems to take part in life.

WSU connection

In May, just before the show’s world premiere, one of its four stars took part in a special screening and question-and-answer session at Wright State University.

WSU was selected in part because of its excellent record of serving students with disabilities.

“When I initially talked to the producers, I was a little bit concerned,” said Jeff Vernooy, director of disability services at the school. “The way disabilities have been portrayed in the past – mostly by able-bodied actors – it tends to be overdramatized.”

Since the screening, however, Vernooy said feedback has been positive.

“There’s significant viewership for the show among both students with disabilities and students who don’t have disabilities,” he said. “I hear conversations going on back and forth with a lot of the students that come into our office about that week’s episode. People say they really like the show, because the way things are portrayed is appropriate and the way life is.”

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