Marlee Matlin Research Paper

Reba Nell McEntire is a legendary country singer. She grew up in the small town of McAlester, Oklahoma, and is now a star in Nashville, Tennessee. She is still going strong at the age of sixty. Reba was born on March 28, 1955. Her profession is being a country singer and an actor. She is married and has one child.

We live in a world that is bounded by cultural norms and stereotypes that affect anyone who looks, acts, or is even born different. Our society narrowed scope views Deaf people as less, uneducated, and unworthy for the opportunities abled people are innately handed. There is a lack of opportunities that Deaf people received based on their disability in terms of jobs and acceptance. The feeling of acceptance is one thing the hearing community has felt at least once, if not their entire life, however it is a feeling that may be unknown to the Deaf community.

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

Deaf people living in a hearing world have certainly made their mark in the hearing community. Deaf people can do anything that hearing people can do. The band shown in the film called “Beethoven’s Nightmare “caused quite a stir in our class. I think that we were simply amazed that deaf musicians could play so well. By showing the audience this experience, it provides hearing viewers with the knowledge that this type of event does occur within the deaf community and that the deaf can appreciate

Bob Hiltermann is a famous deaf storyteller, actor, comic, and musician. He was born in Wiesbaden, Germany and became deaf at the age of four due to spinal meningitis. His family assumed that he was slow and it wasn’t until he was ten years old that they finally realized he was deaf. When Bob turned eighteen, he attended Gallaudet University. While attending Gallaudet he learned American Sign Language, which would eventually lead him to become a confident and successful signer. Bob grew up in a family of classical musicians and this shaped his love for music. Despite being deaf he has become an accomplished musician himself and is the drummer for a famous all deaf band named Beethoven’s Nightmare. He has also experienced a very successful career as an actor and has starred in many award winning documentary films, TV, stage productions, soaps, and feature films. Bob has also helped create and star in an educational sign language series called “Shut up and Sign” (Hiltermann, 2016).

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

Heather Whitestone has contributed so much to deaf history. In 1995 Heather made history by being crowned the first deaf Miss America. She has raised awareness for Deaf and hard of hearing people all over the United States. She has written three books, been part of the National Council on Disability, promoted awareness for deaf issues, and ,of course, been the first deaf woman to win the Miss America title.

The guessing based on visual clues was what I wanted, and it indicated that hearing people cannot tell if a person is deaf or not by looking at them. Knowing that Jeremy Joseph and CJ Jones were not famous, I decided to add Marlee Matlin and Sean Beardy to the survey as both are well-known deaf actors. In doing so, I believed that the vast majority would know that they are both deaf, but I was incorrect in this assumption. Only 72.4% (165/228) of all people who participated knew Marlee Matlin was deaf and 73.1% (155/212) of all hearing people knew Marlee Matlin was deaf. This number was much lower than expected as Marlee Matlin is by far the most iconic deaf actor in Hollywood. The findings were more dismal for Sean Berdy. 46% (104/228) of all participants thought he was hearing and 42% (96/228) thought he was deaf. The results were disheartening because I thought most people knew that they were deaf and they were supposed to be more of a control for people's knowledge, unfortunately this was not the case. My research has once again indicated that hearing people cannot tell if a person is deaf or not by just looking at them.

This book was mainly focused on looking at Deaf culture of today and comparing it to the culture of the past, and what kinds of struggles deaf people had to endure to get where they are today. The two authors of this book are deaf; one was deaf her whole life and the other became deaf as a child. In my opinion, that was a major contributing factor to why it was so interesting. The reader gets a chance to travel through the history of the Deaf through words from those who have experienced it. It also had a positive impact because the authors let the readers know in the introduction that they are deaf and a brief history of themselves, which I

In this book, Deaf in America, by Carol Padden and Tom Humphries, the two authors wrote stories, jokes, performances, and experiences of Deaf people. They also wrote Deaf culture and Deaf people’s lives from various angles. This book is great navigator of Deaf world for hearing people and even Deaf people as me. There are several factors attracting reader. To begin with, I could learn about backgrounds of deaf people and hearing people. Authors wrote about a Deaf boy who was born into a deaf family. Until he discovered that a girl playmate in neighborhood was “hearing”, he didn’t notice about “Others”. Authors

Benjamin James Bahan who was born by Deaf parents in New Jersey was very passionate about American Sign Language and Deaf Literature. As a child he attended Marie Katzenbach School for the Deaf in West Trenton, New Jersey as well as Gallaudet University where he is now a professor and chair of American Sign Language and Deaf Studies. Upon returning to Gallaudet University as a professor and chairs person in 1996 he went to The Salk Institute in La Jolla where he researched American Sign Language linguistics and acquisitions as well as receiving his masters degree in Deaf Education and helped operate the Deaf Studies Program in the School of Education at Boston University. Lucky for Ben, while attending Boston University he met his wonderful wife who was not only Deaf but had Deaf parents just like him.

That this young lady would be the first Deaf actress to win an Academy Award for Best Actress at the age of 21. Not only did Marlee become the first Deaf actress to win an Oscar for her performance of ‘Sarah’ along side actor William Hurt in the 1986 movie “Children of a Lesser God”, but she was also the youngest actresses to win an Oscar and one of only four actresses to win an Oscar in her debut role. Marlee Matlin not only deserved the attention of the

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

I have watched three movies about the deaf culture, each has helped me to understand the Deaf World a little better.