Children of a Lesser God came out in 1986. The same year I failed my first hearing test. That’s not to say I saw it then, or even shortly thereafter. I was five. I wasn’t even remotely ready to face my hearing loss. But I was aware of it. How could I not be? The movie gave the world only the second Deaf star in Marlee Matlin.
The first being Lou Ferrigno, star of The Incredible Hulk TV show that ran from 1977-1982. I was aware that Lou was deaf but that didn’t affect me none. I was too much of a comic fan to give the inclusion of an actor who just happened to be Deaf a second thought. Looking back I appreciate the decision to not make The Hulk Deaf as a way to make more money. And in watching Children of a Lesser God for the first time, I realized how fraught deafness in movies and TV shows is.
Going in, I knew that Marlee was Deaf in real life and was playing a Deaf woman in the movie. I hadn’t realized what a monumental decision this was until I was looking at the trivia afterwards. Before this one, any movies featuring Deaf characters before had featured hearing actors. The decision makers deserve a lot of credit for making that decision. Sure, having someone with the disability play the role may have been a low bar to clear, but they were still the first to clear it.
I appreciated that and a couple of other Deaf Culture related decisions they made.
In one scene a student is told to place her hands on a speaker to hear a song. This highlights the tactile aspect of sound. In another, Marlee’s character, Sarah, is dancing to music at a bar. Only she’s dancing much differently than the hearing patrons of the bar. That’s because she can only feel certain sounds. In another scene, Sarah explains that she can “hear” waves by feeling them roll in and crash on the shore. The final scene I felt comfortable with was when William Hurt’s character, James, meets Sarah the first time.
Sarah works as a custodian at the Deaf School James has just started teaching at. Sarah was one of the top students at the school but is now “just” a custodian. So James wants to help her. (Put a pin in that thought. I”ll come back to it in a moment.) When he asks her to come into the classroom to talk, he assumes she can read his lips, so he doesn’t sign. Sarah refuses to engage until he does. That starts to give us an idea of Sarah’s character. Then she sets it in stone.
James signs: he can teach her to speak.
Sarah signs: she can teach him to mop the floor.
James signs: he doesn’t want to learn how to mop the floor.
Sarah signs…nothing.
And it dawns on him and he laughs at being one-upped.
I laughed along with him. I loved that scene. But that’s the last scene I loved.
The movie is a paternalistic promotion for Oralism; the school of thought that Deaf people should be made to use their voices to communicate. These poor broken Deaf souls need someone to save them, to help them become useful members of society. And the worst of it is, it’s not an entirely wrong message. Ours is not an inclusive society. I need loads of technology, self-advocacy, and tremendous amounts of active listening to function in the world. And I’m only able to do that because I have enough residual hearing to do so. Were I completely Deaf, I wouldn’t have been able to get into the IT field 26 years ago, nor transition to the library field 12 years ago.
Still…
The movie made me angry. It’s such a harmful example of how so often the group that’s being helped is excluded from the decision-making. Only hearing people know what’s best for Deaf people? Please.
The source material gives us some explanation for this attitude.
The movie is based on a play by Mark Medoff. It was meant to honor a Deaf friend and shine a light on Deaf Culture. But Mark is hearing. Which brings us back to the paternalistic attitudes.
Keyed up as I became during the movie, I started getting mad at the title. Was it suggesting that Deaf people are created by a lesser god than the almighty Christian one? Sorta. It’s a quote from Alfred Lord Tennyson’s Idylls of the King cycle:
“But in His ways with men I find Him not. I waged His wars, and now I pass and die. O me! for why is all around us here, As if some lesser god had made the world, But had not force to shape it as he would, Till the High God behold it from beyond, And enter it, and make it beautiful? “
Tennyson has been one of my three favorite poets. Kipling is the second. Poe the Third. And the older I get, the more I see how Poe may have been the least troublesome. But before I go off on a tangent, allow me to say a few words about the movie’s writing and directing.
Throughout the movie, James echoes the signs audibly and acts as a translator for us. That was an understandable choice for the time. I’d hope now it would just be subtitled because he doesn’t need to be repeating it if he’s fluent and subtitles would be more realistic. Not to mention allow us into the world more fully.
And speaking of James’ ASL fluency: why does he even know ASL in the first place? I found it odd that we get Sarah’s background but none of James’. Did he learn it for a Deaf friend or relative? If so, it would have turned down the paternalism a notch. If not, it doubles-down on his savior complex.
Then there’s Billy. James’ non-traditional teaching tactics win over the rest of the class. But not Billy. He refuses to speak. I kept waiting for some resolution to his character arc. But it never came. In a way, I’m glad. Because the resolution to Sarah’s character arc had me gnashing my teeth.
(If you don’t want spoilers skip the next paragraph!)
The conflict that sets up the climax is poor hearing James feeling excluded when he attends a Deaf party. He forces Marlee to leave. And they proceed to have a fight. The fight ends with James commanding her to speak. As if she were a dog. And of course she does. While she basically tells him off and runs away, I think it diminished the character to have her use her voice. And it diminishes her even more that, after a period of time when they’re apart, she ends up chasing after him and apologizing.
I hate to end on such a negative note. So allow me to end with a couple of pleasant surprises.
The first was that Sarah wasn’t a student, which means The Police hit “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” isn’t relevant. The second was that I could understand some signs and even some simple sentences.
So that groups can grow,
the outgroup must speak up first,
then empower them.
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