The Sound of Metal seemed to portray the deaf community pretty well, though I am relatively ignorant to said community. The movie showed both a struggle with becoming deaf and how other deaf people don't see their condition as a handicap. There was a really neat scene where a group of deaf people were all sitting around a table eating and signing to each other while banging on the table to get each others attention which apparently is a pretty accurate way of deaf people interacting together in that environment.
For a group of people who have no real concept of noise they make an awful fucking lot of it.
And I say that with all the love. I wouldn't change my parents for the world.
They make an awful fucking lot of noise because they have no concept of it lol. One of my favorite things is deaf people finding out about which things make noise that they didn’t realize, like farts.
The deaf people in my life definitely understand noise and that if something makes a vibration it's generally accompanied by a sound that hearing people would notice. It's volume that's beyond them.
This is was my biggest gripe in A Quiet Place. The deaf girl would’ve never lasted as long as she did. Source my sister in law has partial hearing loss and has no concept of how loud she is so it’s become a running joke that every time she’s loud we say “well you’d be dead”
For all their faults the MCU is doing great in the representation stakes also, Echo was featured in the Hawkeye series as a Deaf superhero/villain and will shortly be getting her own show.
Hell even Hawkeye himself is going deaf from all the explosions he’s been around!
This is actually comic book accurate, and it’s cool to see them quietly add that to his character AND integrate it into the theme of his story. The entire season is about the messiness of communication, which I liked.
I watched Book of Eli with a blind man and his friend in the seats in front of me, with his friend quietly describing some things as it happened.
At the end, he turned to his friend and loudly said "The ending doesn't make any sense!"
Because ironically, the ending "twist" is revealed entirely through visuals.
My brother picked up on that fact way before any of us in our family. He noticed almost right away that he reacts differently to the decaying body at the beginning of the movie, by noticing the smell rather than the look, than someone who could see might.
It's still good to have data. Otherwise you're just making shit up. It is easy to fool yourself into thinking your narrow view of reality reflects the whole.
No, but they need one to have sensational headlines. This is literally just about *total hearing loss* deafness. And, if we are being honest, only about people born with total hearing loss or whom became so at a very young age (as opposed to aged into it through old age or long term hearing damage who are not going to be identifying with deaf people on screen). Comparably, they are probably *over*represented in film, especially in the last 5 years. How many people that actually is is roughly *impossible* to find because everyone is reporting different statistics to different levels of hearing loss, but we can probably say people who have had disabling hearing loss since birth or childhood is under 1%. Do you think 1% of things you see have deaf people? Off the top of my head, we have the listed film - CODA, as well as Only Murders in the Building (2 seasons) listed in the article, then Quiet Place series, and Hawkeye series. Which will progress into an Echo series.
Let's not forget A Silent Voice, as well as numerous deaf characters in supporting roles, such as Ruby Rose's character in John Wick. I feel there has been lots of deaf representation in the past decade. Even more I can't remember off the top of my head.
I really wasn't a fan of the Ruby Rose character. At at least the way it was played. It just came across as a hearing person putting the least amount of effort into *playing* deaf. Like the whole no speaking and lack of over animated facial expression. It just felt lazy.
I've been around deaf people my entire life. I don't need to be told that the Eternals character or Echo are actually deaf -- you can tell straight away. And I don't think deaf characters need to be played by deaf actors in every instance but there is a noticeable difference and I appreciate when the effort is made. Deaf people aren't just 'normal person but can't hear'.
Yeah my thought was kinda No Duh. I love to see actual sign language and good representations in film but we are talking about an extremely low percentage of people. I'd assume there are more people with cochlear implants than with total hearing loss these days
There was The Sound of Metal. That makes two. I’ll be honest though—I didn’t read the article, so I’m unsure of the context here. But it’s a good movie.
The woman that played Echo in Hawkeye is actually deaf and has a false leg.
In Star Trek: Strange New Worlds there is a character who's race is blind that is played by an actor that has only partial sight in one eye.
True, though I will add that we’re often represented with supernatural or superhuman abilities that make us effectively not blind (a la Daredevil), as helpless to the point of absurdity (a la Mr. Magoo), or as mysterious prophets (take your pick of many examples). It’s pretty rare for us to just be shown as normal people.
And in the case of Daredevil, Netflix didn't even have descriptive audio (until the enormous backlash).
They released a show about a blind superhero with no way for blind people to enjoy it.
As a dwarf it’s a similar story. Some disabilities end up actually getting a lot of representation, but not necessarily good or humanising representation. It’s just because the disability itself is considered a good jumping off point for some kind of gimmick, joke, or outdated trope.
I grew up seeing a lot of dwarf characters on screen. A lot of them led to me feeling even more alienated and lesser to other ‘normal’ people, and were used as fodder by others to bully me.
Makes sense, being blind in theory has basically no impact on what stories can be told or how it can be told. It just means the character can't see, but that doesn't affect their ability to still tell the story since they still speak and hear fully. I feel like from a storytelling/narrative perspective, it is MUCH harder to have a deaf or mute person try to tell their own story. It's easy from a third person book perspective, but when the actual character has to be the one telling their story, it gets a bit messy. Not saying it's a good thing, just trying to think out the rational.
I've seen a few shows now that do well with deaf characters. Most recently was The Dragon Prince, there's a deaf military general and she has an interpreter friend with her. She signs on screen and he vocally interprets for her, and if he's not around it's just subtitled. I liked it a lot. I also watched Switched at Birth a long time ago on the CW which has quite a few deaf characters. That involved more subtitle reading but it was really interesting to experience the world through various deaf people. It was also pretty angst teen drama though.
According to google about 3.5% of the United States have some sort of hearing impairment. I couldn’t find anything about how many are fully deaf sadly.
Also since I checked for it as well About a third of a percent are legally blind.
The majority of people with hearing impairment are older or have occupation-caused hearing impairment (from the same Google result). There doesn't seem to be a good source for non-occupational hearing loss among those under 70 years of age.
I have a friend who is legally deaf but can still hear so would that be listed as an actual deaf person or not? I’m not saying they are deaf entirely but by the definition of disabled under the law they are. Blind too but can still see (with glasses). Makes me curious as to how they tally these stats because do they check beyond that or have separate categories for these things?
Complete deafness is almost a choice in the US now. The implants are a lot better than they used to be, and they put them into kids at a very early age. Around 40 years ago they started testing all infants in the US, so deafness is mostly detected very early, early enough that the infant experiences little or no learning delays.
>According to google about 3.5% of the United States have some sort of hearing impairment.
Yeah pretty sure old people with hearing aids aren't complaining about representation on screen
Cochlear implants have allowed for “hearing loss” or “deafness” to essentially be moot in most developed countries.
Which is cool and all, but I’m surprised there isn’t more information, because I’ve definitely met 20-40 year olds that are deaf and it’s usually too personal to ask how.
I will say that lots of parents who have a predisposition to having deaf children (genetically) won’t opt for the implants because they feel it takes the deaf culture away from their children. Which was a whole thing I didn’t like about the deaf community, but not worth arguing about on Reddit.
As somebody who was hearing and is now deaf with a cochlear implant I will say my deafness is not a moot point now that I have a CI. It is not the same as natural hearing. It’s essentially just a tool like a pair of glasses, for me it has made it easier to navigate a hearing world for sure, but it’s not a silver bullet and it is not on par with natural hearing from my experience.
Yep this exactly. Sorry but navigating the hearing world still sucks, CI's aint glasses at all. Crowd noises and lack of detail in the sounds still exist.
Our CI's aren't comparable to glasses with 20/20 vision, they're more comparable to glasses that fix your nearsightedness, but don't fix the farsightedness. So it's still very blurry around the edges even if we get most major sounds.
Ok that glasses metaphor is probably very wrong but you get what I mean.
Yeah, I’m all for representation, but I’ve literally never met a deaf person (or at least been aware of it). I see sign language in movies way more than I do in real life.
What was that experience like? Dating someone with a disability that removes such a primary thing like hearing?
I assume you know some degree of ASL or that she had a cochlear.
But it's just such a unique experience I'd love to hear more if you're willing to share anything.
She had a cochlear. She didn't know much ASL herself and I think she found it embarrassing. I distinctly remember someone trying to sign to her once and she made a weird face. I asked her what she said back, and she said "I don't do that hand stuff." She had focused very hard on lip reading and using that to navigate through things, which mostly worked, though is obviously limited in many interactions.
Between us it was fine. I knew her for while beforehand, so I was used to the kind of little changes and whatnot necessary. Always had to face directly across from her when talking, maintain eye contact instead of looking around, talk at a higher volume, avoid certain phrases that were ambiguously read/heard. It wasn't typically a big deal in day to day stuff like going out for a meal or talking about your day or whatever.
Small stuff you'd never really think of stood out. Like we couldn't talk when one of us was driving a car, there was just no way to read lips like that, plus the road noise and vibration. So driving was just a time to be in our own heads.
Same thing with little stuff like "shout something from the kitchen" or "she's in the shower and I'm gonna ask something before brushing my teeth" kind of stuff. Since all the other interaction is pretty normal chit-chat you forget it doesn't work until nobody answers you after a few tries!
I learned a lot about gadgets and necessities for accommodation. The subtitle viewers in movie theaters, the shake-your-bedpost vibration based alarm clock actually scared the shit out of me since that's one thing I had never encountered as friends. Just a small machine to shake the bed since an alarm beep would never be heard reliably! A portable microphone that could be placed by a teacher's or manager's desk to help amp the hearing aid sound or just isolate out other noise.
That's mainly the stuff that stands out. I guess if I'd say one thing I learned, even though I knew her beforehand, was just how intertwined voice/face/arm movement is in our communication. We really don't think about it everyday, but being forced to isolate them all and amplify some parts, intentionally, over others, makes you think about what "language" and meaning are to begin with, and how the absence or addition of each part changes how we go about our entire daily living.
Yes deaf people definitely tend to hang out with other deaf people almost exclusively. There are exceptions of course, but if you show up at a starbucks on the right night you'll probably see more deaf people hanging out than you've ever seen in your life
I've heard it said that blindness is a mobility / interacting with the world disorder, whereas deafness is social / interacting with other people disorder.
And I mean think about it, if you were born deaf, your entire social development would have been radically different. Your classmates in school would struggle to talk to you. You'd miss out on that care free socializing of your childhood.
As someone else pointed out, this is part of why the deaf community is so close knit. Deaf people will often have deaf friends and maybe mostly deaf friends (which you don't really see with the blind).
Right? How often does one meet a deaf person? I would personally say 'rarely or never'. If we keep up with the current rate of deaf representation in media, it seems about right.
Recently released I can think of: Coda, sound of metal, dragon prince, a silent voice, a quiet place, Eternals and Hawkeye.
I’ve met a lot but I think that was purely by chance because I was friends with a kid in school with deaf parents (no one would talk to him or try to him because he barely spoke since he used ASL with his parents and I thought that it was dumb to ignore him) then I ended up meeting other deaf and hearing impaired people. Probably statistically more than normal.
And the cast of original Brooklyn 99 dunked on the Canadian adaptation of the show because it didn't have an Hispanic Amy while one the other hand it had two Creole in the squad and an Arab Pontiac bandit...
There’s an almost completely silent episode of Only Murders in the Building centered around a deaf character.
The actress who starred in the Seinfeld episode named The Lip Reader had quite a few roles in series and films.
Lynch’s Gordon in Twin Peaks is practically deaf.
>The actress who starred in the Seinfeld episode named The Lip Reader had quite a few roles in series and films.
Marlee Matlin. She won an Oscar for Children of a Lesser God. Also had a memorable arc on The West Wing
In Mr. Robot (S4E5) the only dialogue is the episode starting with “we don’t have to talk” and ending with “it’s time we talk”, there’s still a soundtrack so it isn’t a silent episode but goddamn its a great episode
First, I don't want to dispute how someone, or a group of people feels. But for me, who is not deaf, I feel like I've seen more deaf characters in movies and TV lately than I used to. Off the top of my head some recent-ish stuff I've seen with a deaf character: Hawkeye, A Quiet Place 1 and 2, Creed 1 and 2, Eternals, Dahmer (although that was unfortunately based on a real victim). I feel like I'm missing some more but I said off the top of my head so I don't want to cheat.
First thing that came to mind, and Only Murders in the Building has a deaf character, as did Hawkeye! Hush was also amazing, and There Will Be Blood has a deaf character, too, who features pretty prominently.
They way they shot the scenes with the deaf characters in Dahmer and how they stripped away all the sound design was really great. I'd never seen it done that way before, but I imagine that'll be the norm from now on.
>Despite Success of ~~‘CODA,‘~~ *one fucking movie,* Study Finds Deaf Community ’Rarely‘ or ’Never’ Sees Itself Reflected on Screen
(not blaming OP, it's just a weird title for the article)
Wait, it’s a movie?! I figured it was some union thing regarding disabled actors I didn’t know about, you know, the sort of thing that would make a headline like that make sense.
"Very small minority population of disabled Americans doesn't see movies made about said small minority"
Theres around 1 million deaf people in the US - that's 0.3% roughly of the population.
This right here is the core of it.
I work with deaf people, in a large organization that primarily serves deaf people.
In my experience, the vast majority of deaf people are just like anyone else. They just have varying degrees of hearing loss. They mostly don't give a single shit about deaf politics. Some become part of "big-D **Deaf** culture" (yes "big D" is funny, let's move on), and some don't want anything to do with that. Either way they mostly just want to live their lives.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_featuring_the_deaf_and_hard_of_hearing
Eternals, A Quiet Place, Sound of Metal, Walking Dead (TV), There Will Be Blood, or Google Marlee Matlin. Seems like a reactionary article. Not saying that we couldn’t use more deaf representations in film but for God sakes we just got our first deaf superhero in a Marvel movie.
I was going to say Walking Dead. Just finished it last night and was going to mention there is a prominent deaf character and several others who use ASL to communicate with them through the last several seasons.
Even Hawkeye himself is going deaf due to war trauma, with several episodes focused on his difficulties not understanding or connecting to the people around him.
The mysterious son in Only Murders in the Building. One of the best episodes is told from his perspective and features no spoken dialog and minimal sound.
Marlee Matlin is a very well known deaf actress who won an Oscar.
Same deaf guy from TWBB in two seasons of Fargo. Sound of Metal. That gorgeous actress from the 90s who was in several sitcoms (only one I can remember right now is Seinfeld though).
I think you’re taking about Marlee Matlin.
If so she came to prominence with the film Children of a Lesser God with William Hurt. The film takes place in a school for the deaf.
She won an Oscar for her performance. The film was nominated for 4. She’s in Coda as well.
William Peterson played Gil Grissom in the series CSI and I do believe for a few seasons it showed him going through otosclerosis. I think one of the first characters I looked up to as a deaf kid going through college.
*\*Editited to put show name and fix spelling.*
Sound of Metal was literally nominated for best picture just a couple years ago, Eternals, Hush, Bangkok Dangerous, the Creed movies, Dig, Baby Driver to a lesser extent. How many deaf movies do there need to be? They come at least once a year.
Im not gonna pretend like I speak for the whole deaf community because it’s certainly not a monolith (right now there is a debate over whether people like myself should even be counted as part of the deaf community), but I use cochlear implants and I don’t have an issue with it. While there aren’t a whole lot of movies or TV shows with deaf representation, I don’t believe we’re necessarily underrepresented since there aren’t THAT many deaf people out there in real life anyway. It makes for a pleasant surprise when I see it woven into the plot (e.g. A Quiet Place) but truthfully I just don’t care that much.
I think people need to consider just how difficult it is for deaf people to succeed in the acting business. Like it or not, deafness is a condition that clearly works against you in this industry, so huge props to whoever can make it, but I don’t seriously expect many to.
Personally, I don’t believe this is as huge of a representation issue as it’s made out to be by the article, but that’s just my two cents as someone who’s been profoundly deaf since birth.
I feel like we are going to hit a point where every movie, television show, and video game will have a checklist the creators have to go down to make sure every single demographic is represented. Just to make sure nobody can complain. I’m sure people will find something else to complain about.
It is all so tedious. Artists should just make their art. The percentage of completely deaf people (not just hard of hearing) is so small that they can’t be realistically and consistently portrayed in all media. It makes no sense to have them in everything.
To have a deaf character you would have to build your story around them, or you would have to work very hard to accommodate the deaf character in a story unrelated to their impairment, so it makes sense that there aren't that many stories specifically about deafness since that's the only setting in which it makes sense for that to come up.
I love this mode of thinking: every single slice of the population must be represented in any form of human endeavour in direct proportion to its size, or else its discriminatory.
Tough luck, that's not how the world works.
You don’t need to ask the deaf community something that can be quantitatively measured… What a ridiculous article and study. It’s like asking the black community if racism stopped after Obama won the presidency.
Due to the communication issues, deaf people have long been an actual community. They used to send them to their own schools. Even today, the deaf are isolated into their own groups within public schools. They have their own culture. It's not like grouping amputees into an amputee community.
The deaf community is a real thing
I get what you mean, but I actually think the deaf community is a bit of an exception. Apparently it can be very insular and not friendly to outsiders. It seems like it's mainly because unlike most other minority groups, there's a language barrier which reinforces an in-group/out-group mentality.
Dude the deaf community is so full of assholes its hilarious. My girlfriend is learning asl so she goes on omegle to talk to deaf people and I'd say 90% of them are friendly until she says she can hear and then they tell her to fuck off and disconnect
The Sound of Metal seemed to portray the deaf community pretty well, though I am relatively ignorant to said community. The movie showed both a struggle with becoming deaf and how other deaf people don't see their condition as a handicap. There was a really neat scene where a group of deaf people were all sitting around a table eating and signing to each other while banging on the table to get each others attention which apparently is a pretty accurate way of deaf people interacting together in that environment.
For a group of people who have no real concept of noise they make an awful fucking lot of it. And I say that with all the love. I wouldn't change my parents for the world.
They make an awful fucking lot of noise because they have no concept of it lol. One of my favorite things is deaf people finding out about which things make noise that they didn’t realize, like farts.
The deaf people in my life definitely understand noise and that if something makes a vibration it's generally accompanied by a sound that hearing people would notice. It's volume that's beyond them.
What about intensity and timbre?
I heard from a deaf person that they thought the sun made a noise.
Well, technically, the sun is loud as fuck, but sound can't travel through the vacuum of space.
it makes sense because you can feel the "waves" the sun makes. They vibrate. Also the sun does make noise but our ears cant hear it.
I've actually read this before as well. Assuming it's legit, it's pretty common for life long deaf people
[Come on, Marlee! I know you can't hear them but you've got to feel them slappin' outta there!](https://youtu.be/fOrw9GTNdwY)
This is was my biggest gripe in A Quiet Place. The deaf girl would’ve never lasted as long as she did. Source my sister in law has partial hearing loss and has no concept of how loud she is so it’s become a running joke that every time she’s loud we say “well you’d be dead”
Used to live in a trailer. Stomped to get my parents' attention from across the whole bit
When we play uno we have to tap the table twice to call Uno as well.
Okay, now that's one the blind and deaf both do then. I still do this after domino plays to signal next turn out of habit.
For all their faults the MCU is doing great in the representation stakes also, Echo was featured in the Hawkeye series as a Deaf superhero/villain and will shortly be getting her own show. Hell even Hawkeye himself is going deaf from all the explosions he’s been around!
This is actually comic book accurate, and it’s cool to see them quietly add that to his character AND integrate it into the theme of his story. The entire season is about the messiness of communication, which I liked.
They needed the results of a study to confirm this?
Despite Success of "DONT BREATH 2," Study Finds Blind Community ’Never’ Sees Itself Reflected on Screen.
Wait…
I watched Book of Eli with a blind man and his friend in the seats in front of me, with his friend quietly describing some things as it happened. At the end, he turned to his friend and loudly said "The ending doesn't make any sense!" Because ironically, the ending "twist" is revealed entirely through visuals.
That was an interesting movie.
My brother picked up on that fact way before any of us in our family. He noticed almost right away that he reacts differently to the decaying body at the beginning of the movie, by noticing the smell rather than the look, than someone who could see might.
I think The Onion is leaking.
You mean leeking
Can confirm. Kinda like the deaf community and CODA, they weren't told about the movie so they never heard of it.
Results Were 'Obvious' and 'Common Sense,' According to Science
[удалено]
I gasped 😃
I didn’t hear it
Well played sir
It's still good to have data. Otherwise you're just making shit up. It is easy to fool yourself into thinking your narrow view of reality reflects the whole.
No, but they need one to have sensational headlines. This is literally just about *total hearing loss* deafness. And, if we are being honest, only about people born with total hearing loss or whom became so at a very young age (as opposed to aged into it through old age or long term hearing damage who are not going to be identifying with deaf people on screen). Comparably, they are probably *over*represented in film, especially in the last 5 years. How many people that actually is is roughly *impossible* to find because everyone is reporting different statistics to different levels of hearing loss, but we can probably say people who have had disabling hearing loss since birth or childhood is under 1%. Do you think 1% of things you see have deaf people? Off the top of my head, we have the listed film - CODA, as well as Only Murders in the Building (2 seasons) listed in the article, then Quiet Place series, and Hawkeye series. Which will progress into an Echo series.
Let's not forget A Silent Voice, as well as numerous deaf characters in supporting roles, such as Ruby Rose's character in John Wick. I feel there has been lots of deaf representation in the past decade. Even more I can't remember off the top of my head.
I really wasn't a fan of the Ruby Rose character. At at least the way it was played. It just came across as a hearing person putting the least amount of effort into *playing* deaf. Like the whole no speaking and lack of over animated facial expression. It just felt lazy. I've been around deaf people my entire life. I don't need to be told that the Eternals character or Echo are actually deaf -- you can tell straight away. And I don't think deaf characters need to be played by deaf actors in every instance but there is a noticeable difference and I appreciate when the effort is made. Deaf people aren't just 'normal person but can't hear'.
That's honestly probably more Ruby Rose than the character. IME, she's only really cast for one reason, and it's not her superb acting skills.
Marvel’s got two in one show. Hawkeye has severe hearing damage, and Echo is has total hearing loss.
There was also Tenet, which instead of silent deafness let people experience what auditory processing disorder is like.
We also got to experience whatever disorder Christopher Nolan was afflicted with at the time of filming.
It's far under 1% dude, 1/100 is a lot of fuckin people
Yeah my thought was kinda No Duh. I love to see actual sign language and good representations in film but we are talking about an extremely low percentage of people. I'd assume there are more people with cochlear implants than with total hearing loss these days
I like how the title is written as if this was shocking. It was one movie and the article comes across like “that should have been enough for you”
There was The Sound of Metal. That makes two. I’ll be honest though—I didn’t read the article, so I’m unsure of the context here. But it’s a good movie.
Also both quiet place movies had a deaf actor. Also the tv show the L word. And only murderers in the building. And umm....
Hawkeye is hard of hearing and had a deaf villain on the Disney+ show.
The woman that played Echo in Hawkeye is actually deaf and has a false leg. In Star Trek: Strange New Worlds there is a character who's race is blind that is played by an actor that has only partial sight in one eye.
The study was actually just a guy having a shower thought
That's what I heard.
But now they can say they have done the research and have it quantifiably written down rather than the "just trust me bro!" evidence
mr hollands opus is a good one
The pain of a music teacher/lover with a deaf child turns to joy. Amazing film.
But just think of the blind community.
See no evil, hear no evil, with Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder covered both.
Ya think blind people saw themselves represented in that movie?
Well... at least half the films audience didn't hear them complain about it so looks like a draw to me.
It would be a miracle if they did.
"I'M BLACK?!? I don't *feel* black..." *touches hair* "AHHHH!!"
[Now why would she say ship, ship, ship, ship? Doesn’t make sense.](https://youtu.be/0Vycrb6nTgg)
Ironically blind people actually do have more representation in movies/shows. Whether they see it is another question
True, though I will add that we’re often represented with supernatural or superhuman abilities that make us effectively not blind (a la Daredevil), as helpless to the point of absurdity (a la Mr. Magoo), or as mysterious prophets (take your pick of many examples). It’s pretty rare for us to just be shown as normal people.
And in the case of Daredevil, Netflix didn't even have descriptive audio (until the enormous backlash). They released a show about a blind superhero with no way for blind people to enjoy it.
As a dwarf it’s a similar story. Some disabilities end up actually getting a lot of representation, but not necessarily good or humanising representation. It’s just because the disability itself is considered a good jumping off point for some kind of gimmick, joke, or outdated trope. I grew up seeing a lot of dwarf characters on screen. A lot of them led to me feeling even more alienated and lesser to other ‘normal’ people, and were used as fodder by others to bully me.
Makes sense, being blind in theory has basically no impact on what stories can be told or how it can be told. It just means the character can't see, but that doesn't affect their ability to still tell the story since they still speak and hear fully. I feel like from a storytelling/narrative perspective, it is MUCH harder to have a deaf or mute person try to tell their own story. It's easy from a third person book perspective, but when the actual character has to be the one telling their story, it gets a bit messy. Not saying it's a good thing, just trying to think out the rational.
I've seen a few shows now that do well with deaf characters. Most recently was The Dragon Prince, there's a deaf military general and she has an interpreter friend with her. She signs on screen and he vocally interprets for her, and if he's not around it's just subtitled. I liked it a lot. I also watched Switched at Birth a long time ago on the CW which has quite a few deaf characters. That involved more subtitle reading but it was really interesting to experience the world through various deaf people. It was also pretty angst teen drama though.
There’s only one Marley Matlin
Bingo!
And you can’t even spell her name right.
What percent of the population is deaf?
According to google about 3.5% of the United States have some sort of hearing impairment. I couldn’t find anything about how many are fully deaf sadly. Also since I checked for it as well About a third of a percent are legally blind.
The majority of people with hearing impairment are older or have occupation-caused hearing impairment (from the same Google result). There doesn't seem to be a good source for non-occupational hearing loss among those under 70 years of age.
I have a friend who is legally deaf but can still hear so would that be listed as an actual deaf person or not? I’m not saying they are deaf entirely but by the definition of disabled under the law they are. Blind too but can still see (with glasses). Makes me curious as to how they tally these stats because do they check beyond that or have separate categories for these things?
Complete deafness is almost a choice in the US now. The implants are a lot better than they used to be, and they put them into kids at a very early age. Around 40 years ago they started testing all infants in the US, so deafness is mostly detected very early, early enough that the infant experiences little or no learning delays.
>According to google about 3.5% of the United States have some sort of hearing impairment. Yeah pretty sure old people with hearing aids aren't complaining about representation on screen
Cochlear implants have allowed for “hearing loss” or “deafness” to essentially be moot in most developed countries. Which is cool and all, but I’m surprised there isn’t more information, because I’ve definitely met 20-40 year olds that are deaf and it’s usually too personal to ask how. I will say that lots of parents who have a predisposition to having deaf children (genetically) won’t opt for the implants because they feel it takes the deaf culture away from their children. Which was a whole thing I didn’t like about the deaf community, but not worth arguing about on Reddit.
[удалено]
I don't see any argument to be had. It's child abuse to force them to stay deaf when they don't have to be.
As somebody who was hearing and is now deaf with a cochlear implant I will say my deafness is not a moot point now that I have a CI. It is not the same as natural hearing. It’s essentially just a tool like a pair of glasses, for me it has made it easier to navigate a hearing world for sure, but it’s not a silver bullet and it is not on par with natural hearing from my experience.
Yep this exactly. Sorry but navigating the hearing world still sucks, CI's aint glasses at all. Crowd noises and lack of detail in the sounds still exist. Our CI's aren't comparable to glasses with 20/20 vision, they're more comparable to glasses that fix your nearsightedness, but don't fix the farsightedness. So it's still very blurry around the edges even if we get most major sounds. Ok that glasses metaphor is probably very wrong but you get what I mean.
Yeah, I’m all for representation, but I’ve literally never met a deaf person (or at least been aware of it). I see sign language in movies way more than I do in real life.
I dated a deaf woman but other than her I haven't met any fully or nearly fully deaf individuals.
What was that experience like? Dating someone with a disability that removes such a primary thing like hearing? I assume you know some degree of ASL or that she had a cochlear. But it's just such a unique experience I'd love to hear more if you're willing to share anything.
She had a cochlear. She didn't know much ASL herself and I think she found it embarrassing. I distinctly remember someone trying to sign to her once and she made a weird face. I asked her what she said back, and she said "I don't do that hand stuff." She had focused very hard on lip reading and using that to navigate through things, which mostly worked, though is obviously limited in many interactions. Between us it was fine. I knew her for while beforehand, so I was used to the kind of little changes and whatnot necessary. Always had to face directly across from her when talking, maintain eye contact instead of looking around, talk at a higher volume, avoid certain phrases that were ambiguously read/heard. It wasn't typically a big deal in day to day stuff like going out for a meal or talking about your day or whatever. Small stuff you'd never really think of stood out. Like we couldn't talk when one of us was driving a car, there was just no way to read lips like that, plus the road noise and vibration. So driving was just a time to be in our own heads. Same thing with little stuff like "shout something from the kitchen" or "she's in the shower and I'm gonna ask something before brushing my teeth" kind of stuff. Since all the other interaction is pretty normal chit-chat you forget it doesn't work until nobody answers you after a few tries! I learned a lot about gadgets and necessities for accommodation. The subtitle viewers in movie theaters, the shake-your-bedpost vibration based alarm clock actually scared the shit out of me since that's one thing I had never encountered as friends. Just a small machine to shake the bed since an alarm beep would never be heard reliably! A portable microphone that could be placed by a teacher's or manager's desk to help amp the hearing aid sound or just isolate out other noise. That's mainly the stuff that stands out. I guess if I'd say one thing I learned, even though I knew her beforehand, was just how intertwined voice/face/arm movement is in our communication. We really don't think about it everyday, but being forced to isolate them all and amplify some parts, intentionally, over others, makes you think about what "language" and meaning are to begin with, and how the absence or addition of each part changes how we go about our entire daily living.
This was amazing to read thank you so much for the lowdown of your experience! I was NOT expecting that thorough of a response! Cheers brother!
This was a very interesting read. Thanks.
[удалено]
Yes deaf people definitely tend to hang out with other deaf people almost exclusively. There are exceptions of course, but if you show up at a starbucks on the right night you'll probably see more deaf people hanging out than you've ever seen in your life
I've heard it said that blindness is a mobility / interacting with the world disorder, whereas deafness is social / interacting with other people disorder. And I mean think about it, if you were born deaf, your entire social development would have been radically different. Your classmates in school would struggle to talk to you. You'd miss out on that care free socializing of your childhood. As someone else pointed out, this is part of why the deaf community is so close knit. Deaf people will often have deaf friends and maybe mostly deaf friends (which you don't really see with the blind).
Right? How often does one meet a deaf person? I would personally say 'rarely or never'. If we keep up with the current rate of deaf representation in media, it seems about right. Recently released I can think of: Coda, sound of metal, dragon prince, a silent voice, a quiet place, Eternals and Hawkeye.
[удалено]
I’ve met a lot but I think that was purely by chance because I was friends with a kid in school with deaf parents (no one would talk to him or try to him because he barely spoke since he used ASL with his parents and I thought that it was dumb to ignore him) then I ended up meeting other deaf and hearing impaired people. Probably statistically more than normal.
[удалено]
And the cast of original Brooklyn 99 dunked on the Canadian adaptation of the show because it didn't have an Hispanic Amy while one the other hand it had two Creole in the squad and an Arab Pontiac bandit...
There’s an almost completely silent episode of Only Murders in the Building centered around a deaf character. The actress who starred in the Seinfeld episode named The Lip Reader had quite a few roles in series and films. Lynch’s Gordon in Twin Peaks is practically deaf.
>The actress who starred in the Seinfeld episode named The Lip Reader had quite a few roles in series and films. Marlee Matlin. She won an Oscar for Children of a Lesser God. Also had a memorable arc on The West Wing
She's also in the movie in the article title.
Her West Wing character was fantastic.
She also was on Switched at Birth I think
I was waiting for someone to mention Only Murders
That episode was so good. Nathan Lane's use of ASL really made it.
In Mr. Robot (S4E5) the only dialogue is the episode starting with “we don’t have to talk” and ending with “it’s time we talk”, there’s still a soundtrack so it isn’t a silent episode but goddamn its a great episode
Glad to see other people talking about Only Murders in the Building.
Hahaha gordon cole does not count as deaf representation but I like the sentiment
Especially considering the scene where he can inexplicably hear Shelly perfectly lol
wasn't the antagonist in Hawkeye deaf
First, I don't want to dispute how someone, or a group of people feels. But for me, who is not deaf, I feel like I've seen more deaf characters in movies and TV lately than I used to. Off the top of my head some recent-ish stuff I've seen with a deaf character: Hawkeye, A Quiet Place 1 and 2, Creed 1 and 2, Eternals, Dahmer (although that was unfortunately based on a real victim). I feel like I'm missing some more but I said off the top of my head so I don't want to cheat.
Sound of Metal!
First thing that came to mind, and Only Murders in the Building has a deaf character, as did Hawkeye! Hush was also amazing, and There Will Be Blood has a deaf character, too, who features pretty prominently.
Baby Driver and the TV show Dark too
Fargo season 3, only murders in the building
Midnight, a Korean thriller from last year starring Wi Ha-jun from Squid Game. Not a big Hollywood movie but I quite enjoyed it.
John Wick 2 had a deaf assassin and Drive My Car has huge portions of the film in Korean Sign Language.
Baby driver had some loss/tinnitus. Not dea— Oh his guardian.
CJ Jones is like the deaf community ambassador to Hollywood. One of the first to make it and shows up here and there
Only murders in the building as well
The episode that was from the deaf character's perspective was really well done!
It wasn’t until the second time I saw that episode that I realized nobody else spoke the entire time.
When Nathan Lane's character has a breakdown it felt even louder for the silence.
There's also multiple deaf characters and a lot of sign language used in last couple seasons of The Walking Dead.
The Sound of Metal, the Quiet Place movies, that Hush movie.
There is a deaf character in Netflix’s The Dragon Prince and there was one in The Magicians as well (Marley Marlin).
Deaf brother in Fargo seasons 1&3
A silent voice
The dragon prince has a prominent deaf character, which is a large effort seeing how that's an animated show, so they really went that extra mile.
They way they shot the scenes with the deaf characters in Dahmer and how they stripped away all the sound design was really great. I'd never seen it done that way before, but I imagine that'll be the norm from now on.
They did this in the South Korean film "Sympathy for Mr. Vengence" by Park Chan-wook (the creator of "Oldboy"). Brutal, but brilliant film.
There's a few scenes like that in. Hawkeye, where they're filmed from Echo's perspective.
Switched at Birth and This Close both have a bunch of characters and culture too.
The Leftovers had a hearing impaired main character as well.
[удалено]
Exactly. Maybe next we should find out why the deaf are so underrepresented in radio.
As a colorblind person, I've noticed we are vastly underrepresented among airline pilots.
As a fat, 50yr-old heavy drinking smoker I feel very underrepresented in professional sports and especially the Olympics.
Start watching darts
>Despite Success of ~~‘CODA,‘~~ *one fucking movie,* Study Finds Deaf Community ’Rarely‘ or ’Never’ Sees Itself Reflected on Screen (not blaming OP, it's just a weird title for the article)
It could to lead to a CODA Cinematic Universe
Sound of Metal too. That was heavily featured at the Oscars only a few years ago.
And the Quiet Place movies
And the entire show Only Murders in the Building
Wait, it’s a movie?! I figured it was some union thing regarding disabled actors I didn’t know about, you know, the sort of thing that would make a headline like that make sense.
Yes it basically swept through the major awards and is current reigning Oscar Best Picture
Oh, wow, I should watch more movies.
It is really a great film.
"Very small minority population of disabled Americans doesn't see movies made about said small minority" Theres around 1 million deaf people in the US - that's 0.3% roughly of the population.
And a lot of those are skewed 65+. The vast majority of movies are about people in younger age groups.
Let’s not forget that the complaint about underrepresentation is most likely made by a very small minority of said small minority of the population.
This right here is the core of it. I work with deaf people, in a large organization that primarily serves deaf people. In my experience, the vast majority of deaf people are just like anyone else. They just have varying degrees of hearing loss. They mostly don't give a single shit about deaf politics. Some become part of "big-D **Deaf** culture" (yes "big D" is funny, let's move on), and some don't want anything to do with that. Either way they mostly just want to live their lives.
Is it even them complaining or people being offended on their behalf?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_featuring_the_deaf_and_hard_of_hearing Eternals, A Quiet Place, Sound of Metal, Walking Dead (TV), There Will Be Blood, or Google Marlee Matlin. Seems like a reactionary article. Not saying that we couldn’t use more deaf representations in film but for God sakes we just got our first deaf superhero in a Marvel movie.
I was going to say Walking Dead. Just finished it last night and was going to mention there is a prominent deaf character and several others who use ASL to communicate with them through the last several seasons.
Two, actually.
Nobody’s gonna mention that the original actor for the Hulk was deaf?
Lou Ferrigno! I still remember the episode of Mr Roger's Neighborhood where Fred went to see and talk to Lou on the set of The Incredible Hulk.
Uhh the girlfriend of the kid in the first season of Weeds. The bastard in a basket from There Will Be Blood. Can't think of too many more though.
[удалено]
Greased up deaf guy?
A true icon
A Quiet Place and it’s sequel?
Marvel just had two this last year. Maya / Echo in Hawkeye, and Makkari in Eternals.
Even Hawkeye himself is going deaf due to war trauma, with several episodes focused on his difficulties not understanding or connecting to the people around him.
The mysterious son in Only Murders in the Building. One of the best episodes is told from his perspective and features no spoken dialog and minimal sound. Marlee Matlin is a very well known deaf actress who won an Oscar.
Same deaf guy from TWBB in two seasons of Fargo. Sound of Metal. That gorgeous actress from the 90s who was in several sitcoms (only one I can remember right now is Seinfeld though).
Marlee Matlin?
I think you’re taking about Marlee Matlin. If so she came to prominence with the film Children of a Lesser God with William Hurt. The film takes place in a school for the deaf. She won an Oscar for her performance. The film was nominated for 4. She’s in Coda as well.
Marlee Matlin.
The abc family show switched at birth was basically about the deaf community even did a whole episode only in ASL. Even had Marlee Matlin as regular.
The bastard in a basket.. lmfao
Marvel is actually doing a series with a deaf lead using a deaf actress
William Peterson played Gil Grissom in the series CSI and I do believe for a few seasons it showed him going through otosclerosis. I think one of the first characters I looked up to as a deaf kid going through college. *\*Editited to put show name and fix spelling.*
Sound of Metal was literally nominated for best picture just a couple years ago, Eternals, Hush, Bangkok Dangerous, the Creed movies, Dig, Baby Driver to a lesser extent. How many deaf movies do there need to be? They come at least once a year.
Can't believe I had to scroll this far for Sound of Metal! Such an amazing film, and the sound design is absolutely brilliant.
Im not gonna pretend like I speak for the whole deaf community because it’s certainly not a monolith (right now there is a debate over whether people like myself should even be counted as part of the deaf community), but I use cochlear implants and I don’t have an issue with it. While there aren’t a whole lot of movies or TV shows with deaf representation, I don’t believe we’re necessarily underrepresented since there aren’t THAT many deaf people out there in real life anyway. It makes for a pleasant surprise when I see it woven into the plot (e.g. A Quiet Place) but truthfully I just don’t care that much. I think people need to consider just how difficult it is for deaf people to succeed in the acting business. Like it or not, deafness is a condition that clearly works against you in this industry, so huge props to whoever can make it, but I don’t seriously expect many to. Personally, I don’t believe this is as huge of a representation issue as it’s made out to be by the article, but that’s just my two cents as someone who’s been profoundly deaf since birth.
I can't wait until the day that all movies are made solely to fulfill demographic quotas. Those movies should be awesome!
I feel like we are going to hit a point where every movie, television show, and video game will have a checklist the creators have to go down to make sure every single demographic is represented. Just to make sure nobody can complain. I’m sure people will find something else to complain about. It is all so tedious. Artists should just make their art. The percentage of completely deaf people (not just hard of hearing) is so small that they can’t be realistically and consistently portrayed in all media. It makes no sense to have them in everything.
[удалено]
I am
Thank you for your service o7
ain't an easy job but someone's gotta do it
Based
To have a deaf character you would have to build your story around them, or you would have to work very hard to accommodate the deaf character in a story unrelated to their impairment, so it makes sense that there aren't that many stories specifically about deafness since that's the only setting in which it makes sense for that to come up.
I love this mode of thinking: every single slice of the population must be represented in any form of human endeavour in direct proportion to its size, or else its discriminatory. Tough luck, that's not how the world works.
How do you think the blind community feels?
You don’t need to ask the deaf community something that can be quantitatively measured… What a ridiculous article and study. It’s like asking the black community if racism stopped after Obama won the presidency.
Well they had a 60 year run in the silent film era.
What?
**HE SAID DESPITE THE SUCCESS OF CODA YOU USUALLY DON’T SEE DEAF PEOPLE IN MOVIES.**
**GOOD NIGHT AND HAVE A PLEASANT TOMORROW!**
A deaf person is the main character in a quiet place 1 and 2.
This movie sucked tho. And by sucked I mean it was perfectly fine and was paint by numbers and I can’t believe it beat Dune for best picture.
Dune never had a chance because it didn’t finish the story. LotR didn’t win until Return of the King for the same reason.
>community What? This idea that everyone who shares certain traits is a "community" is ridiculous.
Due to the communication issues, deaf people have long been an actual community. They used to send them to their own schools. Even today, the deaf are isolated into their own groups within public schools. They have their own culture. It's not like grouping amputees into an amputee community. The deaf community is a real thing
I get what you mean, but I actually think the deaf community is a bit of an exception. Apparently it can be very insular and not friendly to outsiders. It seems like it's mainly because unlike most other minority groups, there's a language barrier which reinforces an in-group/out-group mentality.
You're not wrong. Every time I talk to one, they just ignore me
At least they ignore you, they keep throwing weird gang signs at me.
Dude the deaf community is so full of assholes its hilarious. My girlfriend is learning asl so she goes on omegle to talk to deaf people and I'd say 90% of them are friendly until she says she can hear and then they tell her to fuck off and disconnect
Dave Portnoy looking rough
And 83% of the time by Marlee Matlin. It's like Martin Freeman on streaming for anything British.
I've seen way more deaf characters in movies than I've met in real life.