LOS ANGELES

WHEN Josh Blue won NBC’s “Last Comic Standing” last season, he did so with riffs like this:

“My right arm does a lot of crazy stuff. Like the other day, I thought someone had stolen my wallet.”

It’s funny only if you know that Mr. Blue has cerebral palsy.

The public image of people with disabilities has often hinged on the heroic or the tragic. But Mr. Blue, 28, represents the broader portrait of disability now infusing television and film. This new, sometimes confrontational stance reflects the higher expectations among many members of the disabled population that they be treated as people who happen to have a disability, rather than as people defined by disability.

“What we’re seeing is less ‘overcoming’ and more ‘just being,’ ” said Lawrence Carter-Long, the director of advocacy for the Disabilities Network of New York City, which last year started a film series, “disTHIS: Disability Through a Whole New Lens,” celebrating unconventional portrayals of the disabled.

“More people are saying, ‘This is who I am. If you have a problem with it, that’s your problem,’ ” he said.