#11: Through Deaf Eyes

Buzz: "Emmy-winning actress Stockard Channing narrates this documentary that chronicles the history of deaf culture in America from the 19th century to the present day. Interviews with actress Marlee Matlin, community leaders and other deaf Americans provide an up-front and diverse perspective of this segment of society. Short films created by deaf artists are interspersed throughout the in-depth program."

Wow. Very interesting, compelling, informative. Love (10).

It raises a lot of interesting issues within the deaf community; a panoply of perspectives that the filmmaker doesn't try to synthesize, but rather presents as a very understandable and realistic picture of the diversity of views within the community. It's a diversity very similar (it seems to me) to the diversity of views within the gay community, which I understand fairly well.

But upon viewing this, I'm angry that I didn't learn some things earlier in life. I'm angry at the world for continuing to evaluate people against something called "normal;" angry at the medical profession for continuing to medicalize (and pathologize) difference; and I'm more than a little angry at myself, for taking so long to understand that the simple struggle to live in this world -- as a common characteristic -- is more important than all these labels that just tend to divide us. A label tends to imply so much difference, other-ness: we must fit into different boxes, live different lives, how could we possibly relate to each other? One man in the film notes that when communicating with hearing people, he takes time to adjust for lighting, ambient noise, and positioning in order to create better conditions for communication. But he's describing the logistics of communication, not the subject of their conversation. It makes sense to me now, but I don't think I really got it until recently. People connect on common interests, common (or opposing!) views about the world, shared recollections, etc., not about the features that the world uses to divide us up into categories. I don't communicate with a deaf person about being hearing or about deafness (beyond some preliminary questions, perhaps)... we have conversations about food, or shoes, or global politics, or knitting, or McDreamy or whatever.

The other point I'm glad the film makes is that deaf people don't generally see their lack of hearing as a disability -- they're *proud* to be deaf, and proud of the community that they're part of. Which makes all the sense in the world to me, as I don't want to wake up tomorrow morning and be heterosexual. Simple as that -- I like me, and I'm proud of who I am, and I shouldn't expect anyone else not to have that same pride.

11/4

p.s. I have no idea why I'm on an alliteration kick, but I promise to stop.