This Monday evening UW students and Laramie community members gathered for a screening of Academy Award winning film C.O.D.A, in recognition of Deaf Awareness month, to discuss what it got right and what it got very wrong.
C.O.D.A (Child Of Deaf Adults), follows Ruby Rossi (Emilia Jones) the only hearing member of an all Deaf third generation fishing family as she pursues her dream of singing while grappling with strong family loyalty.
The screening began with very appropriate sound difficulties. Hearing audience members complained the volume was too low, prompting Deaf community member and City Council candidate Alison Cunningham to exclaim “Leave it. Let the hearing people see how it feels for a change.”
Throughout the film, hearing audience members were exposed to many harsh, if overdramatized, realities of being Deaf in a hearing world. Things like workplace descrimination, isolation from community and willful ignorance.
While eye opening, this portrayal of deafness lacks nuance, and as Esther Hartsky, UW ASL professor and 18 year interpreter explains, focuses its attention on one of the most prominent misconceptions many Deaf people face.
“What is almost every single movie we’ve ever made with Deaf actors usually centered around? Music. And that’s the disconnect. Some Deaf people very much enjoy music, whether it’s the feeling of the beat, or maybe they have residual hearing, or like to watch the interpreter…and some don’t. Music is not exempt from Deaf people. They aren’t missing out on anything.”
This preoccupation with “Deaf lack” can be seen in any number of Deaf featured films (2019’s The Sound of Metal, 2010’s Listen to your heart, and even 1986’s Academy Award winning film Children of a Lesser God), highlighting the prominence of a hearing centric, “Poor Deaf” narrative.
Hearing student Cameron Saville had never seen CODA before, but made connections between other media which tend to misrepresent minority communities.
“They way that The Blindside is made for white people, CODA is made for hearing people.” She described the importance of those films as a gateway for further education, not as undisputed truth.
Hali Wise, a senior studying elementary education here at UW, spoke about her experience being Deaf and the idea of deafness as a disability.
“I don’t consider myself disabled. Being Deaf means I gain spatial awareness. I am a very visual person and I love to make art and paint.”
Gain and lack were major topics during the post screening discussion panel. Specifically the overwhelming lack of accurate representation, accommodations, and understanding of the Deaf Experience. Deaf, capital D, is an identity with language, culture, and community.
Both Esther Hartsky and Hali Wise recommend “A Quiet Place” as a good representation of Deaf gain.
Despite reaching significant advancements and milestones, this community still faces widespread oppression and underestimation from the hearing majority in the USA. Since the passage of the American Disability Act in 1990, the dependence on C.O.D.As as portrayed in the film has all but vanished, making way for greater accessibility through legally required interpreters and closed captioning.
As Esther Hartsky put it, “Deaf can. They can be actors, can be doctors, can be absolutely anything, they just can’t hear.”
