Sound and Fury (2000)

Director:

Josh Aronson

Genre:

Documentary

Tagline:

If you could make your deaf children hear, would you do it?

Plot Keywords:

Face Painting | Sign Language | Otolaryngology | Deafness | Reading

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 3 wins & 2 nominations

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Jaime Leigh Allen	...	(voice)
Jemma Braham	...	(voice)
Freeda Cat	...	(voice)
Scott Davidson	...	Peter Artinian (voice)
Ruthanne Gereghty	...	(voice)
John Griffin	...	(voice)
Barbara Herel	...	(voice)
David Jacobs	...	(voice)
Karl Katz	...	(voice)
John Kaufman	...	(voice)
Ann Lenane	...	(voice)
Phillip Namanworth	...	(voice)
Veronica Nash	...	(voice)
Saul Nathan-Kazis	...	(voice)
Allison Weisberg	...	(voice)

Runtime:

80 min

Country:

UK | USA

Language:

English | American Sign Language

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Company:

Aronson Film Associates

Goofs:

Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Peter asks Nancy (the girl with the cochlear implant from the deaf family) if she socializes more with deaf or hearing, the voice-over says, "Mostly deaf people." However, she is actually signing, "Grandma and grandpa."

The deaf can do anything, except hear.

I am a hearing person learning American Sign Language and deaf culture. After watching this film I was so angry with the hearing parents who gave their young son a cochlear implant because of the assumptions they associated with being deaf. The hearing parents kept using the word "opportunities". The mother repeatedly said her son wouldn't have the same opportunities as his brother or any other hearing child. What opportunities could be lost by being deaf? A deaf person can grow up to do anything they want. For example, there is an International Deaf Pilot Association. The deaf can do anything, except hear.

When some hearing people say that deaf parents who do not give their children cochlear implants are being ignorant and selfish it makes me feel sorry for them that they do not understand what it means to be deaf. Being deaf is not a problem that needs to be fixed; it is a different way of experiencing the world that to most hearing people may seem incomplete but is not.

In the film, the mother that gave her son the cochlear implant asked if your child was blind and there was an operation to make them see, would you do it? She then said there was no difference between that and 'fixing' a deaf child. The problem with this thinking is that the blind do not have a community; they do not have a language or their own culture. The blind don't have difficulties communicating with seeing people. That is the difference between the blind and the deaf.