Jill Stark's: Documentary Analysis

In chapter 1, two Deaf sisters Helen and Vicki were interviwed by Carol. Their interview stood out to be the most in the chapter because it showed children spend their time learning what things are supposed to mean. As Carol interviewed the two Deaf sisters and they both argued about Michael being deaf or hearing it made me question why they both had a different answer if their both deaf. Also when Vicki mentioned Michael being Deaf and hearing I noticed you can;t be Deaf and hearing. I also noticed that children are often wrong for the most intertesting reasons and right for reasons we never expect. This was interesting because when Vicki reaches her older sister age she will be better undertanding and

For my American Sign Language class I needed to attend some type of Deaf event. The event I chose was the showing of Love is Never Silent on October 22nd from 6-8pm in Wiley Hall at the University of Minnesota. Love is Never Silent is a very touching and powerful television movie from 1985. This movie can help the hearing world get a look at what it is like to have family members that are Deaf. This movie was also probably an inspiration for Deaf people by how relatable it could be to their life. The movie follows Margaret, a child of Deaf parents, through childhood until she is a grown adult. During the stages of Margaret’s life depicted through the movie I learned new information about Deaf culture and was able to make

“Through Deaf Eyes” was a documentary that really opened my eyes and allowed me to understand just a small fraction of what it may be like for a Deaf person to live in a hearing world. The first thing that really stuck with me was the fact that the film was all silent. The part that made it easy for me to understand was the fact that there was closed captioning. All throughout the film, all participants, both Deaf and hearing, were signing at what seemed like lightning speed. If it were not for the closed captioning, there was no way I would be able to catch up and really engage in the film. Then it hit me: this must be how Deaf people feel if the situation was reversed. I always used to get irritated

In the movie they show many people who share their stories of oppression due to the fact that they are either deaf or hard of hearing. They discuss that they don't want to be seen as people who need help or want sympathy because being deaf is not a disability. In the movie they state just some of the misconceptions that people have of deaf people. One being that they can’t do the same jobs as hearing people because its hard for them and theyre going to need assistance; that is not true; it’s sad that people believe that just because they can’t hear that they’re anything less than intelligent in a certain field.

In “Through Deaf Eyes” you will find a range of perspective on the question what is deafness? This film is a balanced presentation of deaf experience. I believe that the film does a good job of revealing the struggles and triumphs of deaf people in society throughout history. The documentary covers a span of close to 200 years of deaf life in the United States. You will see experiences among deaf people in education, family life, work, and social activities.

Sound and Fury is truly an incredible, emotional one of a kind documentary. The characters are empowering and so raw and it makes watching this film one like I have never seen. It goes around the idea of a new medical procedure called the Cochlear implant, which is intended to cure deafness. It’s a procedure that effects everyone from deaf people to friends to the loved ones in their families. It’s important to note that the expression “cure deafness” is loosely used as it could be reflected as invasive by some in the community.

In mainstream American society, we tend to approach deafness as a defect. Helen Keller is alleged to have said, "Blindness cuts people off from things; deafness cuts people off from people." (rnib.org) This seems a very accurate description of what Keller's world must have been. We as hearing people tend to pity deaf people, or, if they succeed in the hearing world, admire them for overcoming a severe handicap. We tend to look at signing as an inferior substitute for "real" communication. We assume that all deaf people will try to lip-read and we applaud deaf people who use their voices to show us how far they have come from the grips of their disability. Given this climate, many hearing people are surprised, as I was at

In the documentary, For A Deaf Son a deaf child, named Thomas is born into an all hearing family. Not ever experiencing such a situation in their lives, Thomas’s parents grieve for their child and the fact that they are never going to have the perfect “normal” child they dreamed of having. Knowing that Thomas will not get his hearing back, Thomas’s parent want him to be cured as much as possible, so they make him take speech/oral classes. As Thomas continues to take speech classes over the years his speech improves very little. Not being satisfied with Thomas’s improvement and becoming frustrated with not being able to understand Thomas, Thomas’s father explores the deaf community to find more options available for Thomas to be able to communicate.

First, this book allowed me to see the negative way in which deaf people were perceived. This book is not old by any means, and I was taken aback by the way deaf children were perceived by not only others in the community, but often times by their own parents as well. The term

Through Deaf Eyes is a documentary that focuses on two-hundred years of Deaf culture. This film is very enriching and teaches the viewer a variety of different information. In the film it states that Deaf people were considered to be locked away from the “word” of God. Adding onto that, although Deaf people can not hear that does not mean that they cannot believe

This documentary does an excellent job of advocating for the acknowledgment of people who are deaf within society. This is shown through not only the brilliantly written and performed poems of the students but also in the basic, everyday struggles each of them face, such as the desire to fit in or be valued by those around them. Deafness is not a specific to any gender, race, culture, or religion. The struggles many people who are deaf go through are relatable to all and

The deaf community does not see their hearing impairment as a disability but as a culture which includes a history of discrimination, racial prejudice, and segregation. According to PBS home video “Through Deaf Eyes,” there are thirty-five million Americans that are hard of hearing (Hott, Garey & et al., 2007) . Out of the thirty-five million an estimated 300,000 people are completely deaf. There are over ninety percent of deaf people who have hearing parents. Also, most deaf parents have hearing children. With this being the exemplification, deaf people communicate on a more intimate and significant level with hearing people all their lives. “Deaf people can be found in every ethnic group, every region, and every economic class.” The

Today Cecilia prefers to communicate without her cochlear implant. This frees her from struggling to hear every last syllable a person is saying to her. “When I am in the deaf community, I am liberated from everything designed for those who can hear. I’m not babied or pitied and I’m feel thankful for not being viewed as incapable…I just feel as though the whole world isn’t out to get me everyday.”

“In American hearing culture, however, limited hearing is an impairment; parents and doctors in that culture find they have an obligation to alleviate that impairment if possible” (Bahan, Lane 1998). These biases may be present because of the advancement of hearing technology (hearing aids/cochlear implants). The Deaf community does not view deafness as an impairment or a health issue, but they think the hearing community does. Therefore, this hearing technology is unnecessary and unethical in the eyes of the deaf community. “Children who are merely Deaf are perfectly healthy, and it is unethical to operate on healthy children” (Bahan, Lane 1998). These advancements also provide a larger presence of LSL/oral communication options to be available for children who are deaf or hard of hearing. LSL can diminish the use of ASL and ultimately diminish the presence of younger children in the deaf community. “The presently thriving culture would diminish as well and possibly die. If so, the program of cochlear implantation in children, and the parental decisions that implemented it, would have as one effect the diminution or death of a minority culture” (Bahan, Lane

Human beings take their senses for granted, especially their ability to see and hear. They are luxuries one has, but does not notice until they no longer have them. People take these senses for granted because they don’t realize what it is like to be blind or deaf. They don’t realize what life is without seeing color or knowing what people look like. They don’t realize what life is without hearing people talk, birds chirping, or the wind howling. Helen Keller, who was blind and deaf, adapted to her challenges of not being able to read or write, to becoming an author, political activist, and lecturer. This serves as an example for how a blind and deaf person should try to live. That doesn’t mean that it wasn’t challenging for her to live her daily life and she did not have all the opportunities as a person that has all of their major senses. It isn’t easy to live without the capacity to see and hear, for those people who don’t have the capacity, it is another struggle and another accomplishment to live their lives with these struggles of being blind and deaf.