After watching Sound and Fury, I realized how sheltered I am. I am rarely exposed to people who can't hear, and this movie really woke me up. This, of course, is because of the two main discourses in the film. These discourses were the hearing and the deaf. The movie clearly showed both sides and their arguments through the journey of deciding whether to get cochlear implants.
The people that could hear generally fought for the cochlear implants. Their main argument was based on the idea that hearing people have more opportunities in the future. They claimed that a person with a cochlear implant would have an advantage to the deaf because they could talk, hear, and still even be able to understand sign language. It was even pointed out that a deaf person would not be able to pursue a job such as a surgeon; whereas, if that person got the cochlear important, he/she would have that opportunity. The hearing also argued that because of this, the parents would technically be abusing their children by not giving them the chance. This side of the argument truly believed that getting a cochlear implant would significantly help the children's future.
The deaf people, for the most part, fought against the cochlear implants. They mainly argued that getting a cochlear implant would ruin the deaf culture. They feared that this implant would slowly kill the culture, and they wanted their children to remain part of that culture. They went even further to worry that these children with cochlear implants would be stuck between the hearing and deaf worlds, and they wouldn't have as much of a place in the world. Another worry that they had involved the idea that it wasn't a bullet-proof solution to the hearing problem. They argued, with reason, that cochlear implants didn't always help enough. Some children with cochlear implants were still unable to speak or hear as well as they had expected.
These two discourses definitely have a different view on the issue of cochlear implants. The deaf typically decide against it and consider it outrageous as it may destroy the culture. The hearing usually argue for the implant as they claim that they know what hearing is like and how great the advantage is. Both sides have reasonable arguments, and this makes the question of the implant even more difficult to decide. By exposing viewers to both discourses, the film makes even those who think they know what they think second guess themselves entirely.
I agree. I myself was quite sheltered. I never imagined having a deaf child would be a good thing. There was the thought brought up that the once deaf now hearing child would laugh at their deaf relative. That made me think that the deaf are proud of there culture but at the same time a little insecure about it.
ReplyDeleteI agree with both of you! My neighbor is deaf though so I actually have learned a lot from him and it is actually pretty sweet! But really we are all mostly sheltered because we are not exposed to it much at all. I like how you wrote this and it summed it up really well :) I saw both sides of the story and I really don't think I understand how complicated these decisions are!
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