Matt Glowacki rolled his wheelchair down the middle aisle in Lumpkin Auditorium, stopping it right before he hit the wall.

He laughed as he looked down and saw he left skid marks on the carpet.

Glowacki presented “Diversity According to South Park and Family Guy” on Thursday as part of University Board Cultural Arts series.

Glowacki was born without legs and opened his presentation by telling about himself and his disability.

He said he actually doesn’t think he has a disability.

“Walking is overrated,” he said. “It really is.”

He said being in a wheelchair is easier, and he never gets tired from walking.

Glowacki said diversity is not only noting the differences in other people but also taking the time to learn from those different people.

He used three clips from “South Park” and “Family Guy” to help address his point of diversity.

He said “South Park” and “Family Guy” are laden with morals and values. If people just paid more attention, they could learn something, he said.

The first clip showed the character Peter from “Family Guy” getting plastic surgery to make himself thinner and more muscular.

This clip depicted “lookism,” which Glowacki described as when people discriminate against the way someone looks. He said this problem also includes discrimination against oneself.

People have unhealthy body images because of images in the media, Glowacki said, and people should realize those images are no more real than the cartoons he was showing.

The second clip from “Family Guy” showed the character Joe Swanson participating in the Special People’s Games.

“Ableism,” shown in this clip, is something Glowacki knows a lot about.

He said sometimes people are overly careful and walk by without looking or acknowledging the person with the disability in the room. Other times, people are over-accommodating.

“People don’t know how to treat other people,” Glowacki said.

Approaching a disabled person and saying, “Wow, you can drive” would be no different than going up to a black person and saying “Wow, you’re African-American and you’re in college,” he said.

The third clip was the “Wheel of Fortune” episode from “South Park,” which addressed racism.

“People say inappropriate things all the time,” Glowacki said, giving examples of Mel Gibson and Don Imus.

He said some people are “ignorant and lazy” and don’t take the time to find out anything about different people.

“That’s terrorism we can all fight,” Glowacki said.

Rosa Varela, a sophomore foreign language major, recently faced ignorance from one of her teachers.

She was concerned about her grade and went up to her teacher to ask for clarification. Before her teacher even answered her, she asked Varela, “First of all, do you understand me?”

Gabby Garcia, a senior accounting major, came to the presentation because she is a minority and is interested in learning about diversity. She watches “Family Guy” sometimes but hadn’t seen some of the clips Glowacki showed.

She said it wasn’t until today that she saw and understood what the show was trying to say.

While Varela doesn’t watch the shows, she received more insight about diversity through the clips shown.

“You think about it (diversity), but it’s not right in front of your face,” she said.

Emily Zulz can be reached at 581-7942 or at eazulz@eiu.edu.

After his lecture “Diversity According to Family Guy and South Park,” Matt Glowacki (right) talks to second year graduate student Kristin Flores about her thoughts on the cartoon shows. During his lecture, Glowacki discusses racism, lookism and ableism us

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