Blind Wheel of Fortune

Today's post goes out to the blind readers who ironically and in a cruel twist of fate, probably can't read this, but hopefully they can have some Tuesdays with Morrie type character read it to them or something.

Evidently Pat Sajak is unfamiliar with the word "handicapability" because the show Wheel of Fortune, now its 24th season, seems to be lacking a devout blind fan base. Oh wait, maybe that's because the premise of the show makes it virtually impossible to develop such a following. I mean, think about it. Have you ever seen a blind person playing hangman, which is basically a small scale Wheel of Fortune? Me neither...

Most shows have formatted themselves to allow a blind following (no pun intended). The way they do this is they have a recording that tells the viewer (once again no pun, just a lack of a better term) major things that are central to the plot such as "woman scowls at man". This indicates that the woman is probably ape shit crazy and will probably kill the man later in this episode of Law & Order or rape him with the leg of a table if you're an SVU fan. This expression is central to the plot and television companies have found a way to include the blind demographic instead of leaving them in the dark (okay, that one was intentional and believe me, I know I'm going to hell for it).

Even just about every other game show has the capability to make it friendly to handicap contestants such as Jeopardy which provides a braille listing of all the categories. This allows blind people to prove themselves as smart people too. I mean, c'mon, look at Stephen Hawking. He's basically proved most of the handicapped people in the world are not only smart, but even when handicapped, they can get more tail than you or I (Hawking's is in the process of divorcing his second wife).

Wheel of Fortune can't really equip itself like this or else they'd be changing the braille plates every other turn and by the time it was the blind contestants turn again, they'd have just gotten the freshly printed braille plates and no time to think of their next move. Same goes for those watching (and I use the term loosely) at home. The announcer would have to say "Okay, the category is 'things' and it's seven letters." Now, let's assume the first contestant guessed "s" and there are 3 s's. Then the announcer would have to painstakingly say "Alright, there are three s's and it's now 'blank blank blank s, another s, another blank, and a final s'." By the time, they got done with all the letters and the blanks, the next contestant would have already gone. They'd struggle to catch up and honestly, it'd just suck.

Sadly, it's a lose-lose situation. This post is to request that we end this discriminatory practice of Wheel of Fortune. We could do a letter writing campaign, or boycott the show entirely, but I think the most effective course of action is to deliver Pat Sajak's head to me on a platter. We have to show people we mean business and blind people can fuck people up just as bad as those who have the gift of sight. So don't kill Pat Sajak for me, do it for all the Stevie Wonder's of the world.