(Photo: Jason Davis/Getty Images for the Muscular Dystrophy Association) The reboot, with Kevin Hart at the helm in place of the late Jerry Lewis, looks to be no better.”Īctor Chip Esten and former MDA spokesman Bryson Foster announced musical guests at the last held MDA telethon, in 2014, at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. “The onetime Labor Day staple was notorious for pity-peddling and inspiration porn. To many of us in the disability community, this was not welcome news,” wrote Ben Mattlin, a former MDA poster child (the children were known at the time as “Jerry’s Kids”) and author of Miracle Boy Grows Up, in a Washington Post op-ed. “The Muscular Dystrophy Association recently announced its celebrity-studded telethon would be returning after a six-year hiatus. … A lot of us feel it’s a fundraising machine.”īecause of that, many have taken to social media, blogs and other formats to express the anger and mistrust that’s boiling over as this weekend’s event fast approaches. “They use your body, your voice, your words to make money. “I call it ‘pimped for profit,’” Dominick Evans, a disability-rights activist and former MDA “poster child,” tells Yahoo Life. That year's telethon raised $60.5 million. Jerry Lewis is seen here hosting 44th annual Labor Day telethon to benefit the Muscular Dystrophy Association in 2009, in Las Vegas.
24, falling within National Disability Employment Awareness Month.Īnd while word of the returning tradition may not have even registered for some, it was a painful trigger for many disability activists, who had long viewed the telethon as a “ stigmatizing,” “ heartless” “ pity party.” It promises a slew of celebrity guest stars (including Common, Don Cheadle, Eva Longoria, Jack Black and Cindy Crawford), and will be streamed on YouTube on Oct.
Then came September 2020, when the organization announced a reboot of the event - called The MDA Kevin Hart Kids Telethon, to be hosted by the beleaguered comedian. (Photo: Getty Images/Getty Images for EIF & XQ)įrom 1966 to 2010, the MDA telethon ran in its original format - showcasing a slew of entertainers and children in wheelchairs and their parents for more than 21 hours each Labor Day weekend and famously hosted by Jerry Lewis, who would end each telethon by dramatically singing “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” But following a split between the host and the nonprofit, the event was shortened each year until, in 2015, it was canceled altogether.
It's just one of the reasons that critics of the event are unhappy. Kevin Hart will host the MDA telethon, returning after a six-year hiatus this weekend.
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