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natalyadThis is my rambly thoughts about the Grayson Perry Who Are You programme episode 3 which is at http://www.channel4.com/programmes/grayson-perry-who-are-you/on-demand/55337-003 until about 2nd December 2014. The deaf bit starts about 27 mins in, after the 2nd ad break.
I'm intrigued by how different people have parsed this programme, both those with some experience of signing deaf people and those who don't. I think Deaf signers can be perceived as more "shouty" than they actually are by non-signers. A hearing friend who doesn't sign has said how he didn't always realise who was speaking whether it was Tomato, Paula or someone else (the terp and that terps don't say anything for themselves in this context) and it wasn't always clear who was saying what and made things very confused. Some visual cueing or better camerawork would have helped with this.
I think overall Grayson has managed to grok a lot of complex issues around Deaf signing identity (and incidentally other deafness and disability issues too) in a very short programme, there was only about 15 minutes of footage dedicated to this segment.
My BSL (rusty level 2 with horrible SSEish grammar) isn't very fluent for pure language vocab/grammar but using the English subs I was able to get the main meaning and use the BSL (where we could see it) for tone, context and personality of the signers. I missed a bunch of stuff hearies picked up from the terp's voice over which I just kinda ignored (I can hear them, but they're not important, the text was better).
I don't like the first scene with whoopy music accompanying the signing deaf people in groups which are filmed in a way which means you can't even parse the sign and it's just hands and faces flapping about. It's like they're trying to do some "they can't hear isn't that strange" effect to match the whoopy visuals of the signing and succeeded in making me dizzy and feel sick...
Nice to be able to watch Paula, Tomato, the children and the other Deaf people signing although I would have liked it if the whole thing was filmed in an easier to follow BSL kinda way cos there were times I couldn't follow the sign cos of camera angles and stuff.
In the audiology scene, I am struck by the audiologist having quite a strong foreign accent and actually being very hard to understand. And how much outsiders Paula and Tomato seem to be in that space, only "referenced" if someone is actually talking TO them. It feels like they're not fully included in that space - they are outsiders - and audiology looking at Hazel (the younger kid) like she's an Alien or something. It feels like the audiologist is describing Hazel in terms that Paula and Tomato don't really recognise. I'll also note how well behaved the older kid Molly is, she sits still eating her snack and is watching watching. Actually so is Hazel, wide eyed, very still, watching. Too many people in the room to do a good hearing test though, too much visual distraction error!
Tomato talking about his experience of audiology was very interesting, it's not one I share. I am fascinating by the inherently hearie-centric "listen hard" type language used to him as a child which he didn't understand. I laughed (wryly) at the epic fail of audiology giving so many visual clues to when they are beeping the beeper - that's a narrative I've heard a lot from many deaf and HOH people as children (including an ex audiologist who was HOH as a child - not sure if as adult too). Tomato talks of being a child having his hearing tested and trying to meet his parents' expectations. The fear and worry about letting them down, disappointing them and how happy they seemed to be when he indicated 'I've heard that' even when he hadn't heard anything, but he recognised that he had pleased them.
I too remember totally knowing when the audiologists were generating the sounds, my mum's facial expression - especially when she could hear stuff I can't, the tension in the room changing, lights reflecting off things and other things I cant name. As an adult I have to consciously shut off the visual cues when having my hearing tested because I already false positive cos of tinnitus which mimics audiometer tones. It's been an interesting experience watching my mum have her hearing tested after sudden onset unilateral deafness last year - we both grin at the role-reversal, my turn to be the observer.
I don't remember feeling as a child when I had my hearing tested that I had to indicate "I've heard" when I knew they'd set off a sound, somehow (I don't know how) it was OK for me to ignore the visual clues and only indicate when I actually heard something. I used to tell my mum I could tell without sound and she suggested I closed my eyes, and sat with my back to the audiologist and or her. She very much confirmed I only had to indicate when I heard the sound and that they should test properly till we worked out where my levels were. I can't honestly remember hearing tests before they used a clicker but I know I had them cos I've got the audiograms from age 3 somewhere.
Then again, my deafness was not a devastation to my parents. I was born with multiple health issues, some of which were very life-threatening for a short while and others which were complex medical issues in a baby and other lifelong disabilities. My parents worked out that I was deaf by the time I was 8 months old despite an ENT doc claiming I wouldn't be deaf without even checking (even tho people with Microtia and Atresia are often deaf!). It was my parents who noticed my deaf behaviours and pushed for a 'diagnosis' as it were. Their reaction upon my deafness being confirmed, especially my mum's was to learn everything she could about deafness. She fought TheAuthorities for access to medical libraries and attended NDCS conferences and did everything she could to understand what a hearing aid would involve and what my experience of it might be like. I need to see if she's still got the letters she wrote to my grandpa with diagrams of hearing aids and explanations of how sound might sound to me. She and my granddad wrote letters to one another discussing sign language but with my hand impairment, ongoing medical stuff and Manchester being a hotbed of oralism they decided to keep that on the backburner... My mum has never been threatened by my learning sign, whether that was fingerspelling as a child or BSL classes when I went to university.
I am intrigued by a partial shared experience of childhood audiology but very different parental expectations transmitted and received by Tomato vs myself. I can see how feeling you've failed your parents is so psychologically traumatic. I wonder how common each of our experiences are in deaf and HOH from childhood people.
I quite like Grayson's brief summary of BSL as a language and focal point of culture - it was very coherent for such a short narration. The segue into the hearing aid covers bit where Grayson shows Tomato's metallic, silver and spiky hearing aid covers was a bit annoying. Grayson photographs these and interprets it as "I am deaf and I am proud". I wonder if that is how Tomato means it, or whether it's something else. I want to steal the design idea - I will tweet and ask Tomato if he minds! My BAHAs would look ace with silver spiky covers. I'm pretty lazy about decorating my BAHAs.
The scene with the friends was interesting, I recognise Fifi who I think is Paula's sister and Paddy Ladd who the older guy with the beard but not the other two people. I absolutely loved what Fifi said "I'm really sorry, Grayson. You're hearing, so I don't mean to offend you, but I feel like we're constantly trying to please hearing people and fit in with what hearing people want. And deaf people have to put up with really an appalling education system, because people can't be bothered to learn to sign." I relate to that as someone for whom oralism could be deemed a success. It is all about D/deaf people making all the effort, we have to listen, lipread, use hearing aids, constantly strain to hear on hearing people's terms.
Sign languages are more on our (deaf people's) terms and hearing people can access it just as much. Tomato chipping in to say that the militants are the hearing people made me laugh out loud. Hearing people in my experience DO only want deaf people to learn how to speak (note not hear, but SPEAK) and not acquire or use a sign language. Why does everyone care how we speak! Paddy chips in to say that deaf people are ignored and neglected, our language (sign language) is neglected. He says that if the group can teach Grayson how important sign language is, they wonder what else they can teach him. Interestingly I know Tomato was bought up Oral as was Paddy. I don't know about Paula and Fifi (I think they might have been oral too based on later scenes) or the other two who don't say anything.
I was a little bit wary of start of the next scene with the Deaf vs Jewish - the two identities were 'set up' against one another. I think Grayson's comment about "history of victimhood" was bang out of order and somewhat bizarre. However this scene was one of the ones which got to me the most. Paula's mum talking to Paula mostly in English with a few signs, she's clearly tried to learn if not very well. It was interesting watching the body language between Paula and her mum, obviously this is an edited clip, possibly a repeatedly rehashed "old argument" with a worn out script but don't all/many families (of origin?) have those.
Paula had a fair few minutes of camera time where she signed very powerfully about how her sign language was her culture and how much it helped her when 'before' (so I presume she's a later learning BSLer?) she was anorexic and depressed. "If I didn't have my language I wouldn't be here" which I wasn't wasn't sure how to parse that, whether as a 'suicidal' type thing, or an identity thing of her personhood was created, expressed and contextualised through sign language.
Sign language helped Paula understand the world and herself better. I'm not a very good signer, I am out of practice cos I don't socialise much with BSLers in person, my arm impairments limit how much I can sign without pain these days and I am crap at putting the work in to bash grammar into my head. BUT learning BSL even to the limited level that I have, is one of the BEST things I have ever done. Within months of starting my level 1 classes my mum commented to me that my confidence seemed to have gone up and far from damaging my hearing or speech as an audiologist claimed it made my speech even better, increased my "tonality" and has helped me with a lot of language. I can relate to what Paula says there to a significant degree even though I am not culturally Deaf and I don't really live much in the D/deaf worlds except a bit online. That's my deafhood too and bollocks to anyone who doesn't like that or wants to diss BSL or my straddling worlds identities.
The bit where Paula tells her mum how much she valued her mum's cultural heritage of Judaism and loved growing up with it, but it being something she can't pass to her children made me want to cry. I had to stop watching this in my lunch hour at work beacuuse "too much emotional blur for work error". I don't know why, but watching Paula say that to her mum and how she reached out to hold her mum and drew her Mum into a hug gets me every time I watch that scene. It's like they struggle to find a shared language, but a hug shows just how much Paula seems to love her mum even though they might not understand one another or one another's point of view all the time. That hug says to me "I love you, I can't be what you want me to be or how you want me to be, but it's not because I don't love you.". It makes me value the good relationship I have with my mum.
That scene was also important cos I think many deaf people exist in a family of origin situation where they cannot be what their hearing parents want them to be, whether that's "able to hear like hearies" "make an effort" or because they have learned sign language which is not a language of the family or one they have bothered/managed to learn. The cultural identities where the children do not share the same expected cultural heritage of the parents, (many) D/deaf, disabled people and LGBTQ people and maybe to some degree religion. Where there isn't that continuity of family parent to child identity I see that strain and perhaps something about creating a family not of origin in a sense of strong communities. Maybe that is why I feel a kinship with the Deaf community even though I'm not that big a D deafie.
Why is Grayson so obsessed with Tomato's hearing aid covers? OK they are badass and cool but they're like the least important bit of the programme. I didn't SEE Tomato wearing them, or any other hearing aids for that matter in the film... Maybe he did and those scenes were edited out, who knows.
Ohno, the deaf people don't have proper access to music trope... Defining deaf by what (you perceive) they don't have there Grayson? *wince* this seems to be a hugely variable topic and probably not worth poking with any sticks here.
In the final scene showing the groups the artwork Grayson goes back off on one saying the people in this programme all have "issues" and I feel it refers back to him admitting to disagreeing with those people on aspects of their identity like he did with the fat women implying a load of health propaganda from earlier in the programme to invalidate their proudness of identity. Grayson does then go on to talk about some of his perceptions of the deaf people and a politicised identity and a number of fairly nuanced points about Deaf identity but I can't help feeling he's not really grokked the Deaf group as much as he has some of his other subjects in this series.
I wasn't sure what to make about the final artwork for the Deaf group. I have heard a few people saying they're unimpressed online from before I saw the programme. I now realise that Tomato has made it his twitter icon. I was prepared not to like it at all, but I think understanding more of Grayson's logic behind it and seeing the finished version makes me like it more. Grayson did make a nice comment to Tomato that he liked the hearing aid covers cos they were a bit angry which is true, deafies are a bit angry and rightfully so.
I had never used a terp to communicate with a BSL user until I started my current job, I had always just blagged it in Deaf spaces or with signing people with what sign I have and had a lot of support and patience from better BSLers and it was social. Using a terp to communicate with BSL users at work because it's professional is SO much harder (for me) in many ways because it makes things much more stilted and does weird things to turn-taking and conversational flow. At least I can watch the BSL user signing for themselves and get tone which non signers don't get anything from. I wonder how much Grayson will have lost engaging with the Deaf people in this programme from not having any sign language himself as even a bit of sign goes SUCH a long way - I wonder how many BSL users would take a crappy signer vs terpped conversation.
I'd say this episode of the series is the least-good of the three, with the least apt artworks for the subjects, only one group the fat women really loved theirs, the Northern Irish Loyalists clearly felt they were being mocked somehow and I think they were.
I think the Deaf people were covered better than they would have been by most hearing presenters and I'd give it a solid 8/10 in that they did cover a number of complex issues and didn't get side tracked into OMG Deaf Eugenics or some of the other boring stereotypes.
I'm intrigued by how different people have parsed this programme, both those with some experience of signing deaf people and those who don't. I think Deaf signers can be perceived as more "shouty" than they actually are by non-signers. A hearing friend who doesn't sign has said how he didn't always realise who was speaking whether it was Tomato, Paula or someone else (the terp and that terps don't say anything for themselves in this context) and it wasn't always clear who was saying what and made things very confused. Some visual cueing or better camerawork would have helped with this.
I think overall Grayson has managed to grok a lot of complex issues around Deaf signing identity (and incidentally other deafness and disability issues too) in a very short programme, there was only about 15 minutes of footage dedicated to this segment.
My BSL (rusty level 2 with horrible SSEish grammar) isn't very fluent for pure language vocab/grammar but using the English subs I was able to get the main meaning and use the BSL (where we could see it) for tone, context and personality of the signers. I missed a bunch of stuff hearies picked up from the terp's voice over which I just kinda ignored (I can hear them, but they're not important, the text was better).
I don't like the first scene with whoopy music accompanying the signing deaf people in groups which are filmed in a way which means you can't even parse the sign and it's just hands and faces flapping about. It's like they're trying to do some "they can't hear isn't that strange" effect to match the whoopy visuals of the signing and succeeded in making me dizzy and feel sick...
Nice to be able to watch Paula, Tomato, the children and the other Deaf people signing although I would have liked it if the whole thing was filmed in an easier to follow BSL kinda way cos there were times I couldn't follow the sign cos of camera angles and stuff.
In the audiology scene, I am struck by the audiologist having quite a strong foreign accent and actually being very hard to understand. And how much outsiders Paula and Tomato seem to be in that space, only "referenced" if someone is actually talking TO them. It feels like they're not fully included in that space - they are outsiders - and audiology looking at Hazel (the younger kid) like she's an Alien or something. It feels like the audiologist is describing Hazel in terms that Paula and Tomato don't really recognise. I'll also note how well behaved the older kid Molly is, she sits still eating her snack and is watching watching. Actually so is Hazel, wide eyed, very still, watching. Too many people in the room to do a good hearing test though, too much visual distraction error!
Tomato talking about his experience of audiology was very interesting, it's not one I share. I am fascinating by the inherently hearie-centric "listen hard" type language used to him as a child which he didn't understand. I laughed (wryly) at the epic fail of audiology giving so many visual clues to when they are beeping the beeper - that's a narrative I've heard a lot from many deaf and HOH people as children (including an ex audiologist who was HOH as a child - not sure if as adult too). Tomato talks of being a child having his hearing tested and trying to meet his parents' expectations. The fear and worry about letting them down, disappointing them and how happy they seemed to be when he indicated 'I've heard that' even when he hadn't heard anything, but he recognised that he had pleased them.
I too remember totally knowing when the audiologists were generating the sounds, my mum's facial expression - especially when she could hear stuff I can't, the tension in the room changing, lights reflecting off things and other things I cant name. As an adult I have to consciously shut off the visual cues when having my hearing tested because I already false positive cos of tinnitus which mimics audiometer tones. It's been an interesting experience watching my mum have her hearing tested after sudden onset unilateral deafness last year - we both grin at the role-reversal, my turn to be the observer.
I don't remember feeling as a child when I had my hearing tested that I had to indicate "I've heard" when I knew they'd set off a sound, somehow (I don't know how) it was OK for me to ignore the visual clues and only indicate when I actually heard something. I used to tell my mum I could tell without sound and she suggested I closed my eyes, and sat with my back to the audiologist and or her. She very much confirmed I only had to indicate when I heard the sound and that they should test properly till we worked out where my levels were. I can't honestly remember hearing tests before they used a clicker but I know I had them cos I've got the audiograms from age 3 somewhere.
Then again, my deafness was not a devastation to my parents. I was born with multiple health issues, some of which were very life-threatening for a short while and others which were complex medical issues in a baby and other lifelong disabilities. My parents worked out that I was deaf by the time I was 8 months old despite an ENT doc claiming I wouldn't be deaf without even checking (even tho people with Microtia and Atresia are often deaf!). It was my parents who noticed my deaf behaviours and pushed for a 'diagnosis' as it were. Their reaction upon my deafness being confirmed, especially my mum's was to learn everything she could about deafness. She fought TheAuthorities for access to medical libraries and attended NDCS conferences and did everything she could to understand what a hearing aid would involve and what my experience of it might be like. I need to see if she's still got the letters she wrote to my grandpa with diagrams of hearing aids and explanations of how sound might sound to me. She and my granddad wrote letters to one another discussing sign language but with my hand impairment, ongoing medical stuff and Manchester being a hotbed of oralism they decided to keep that on the backburner... My mum has never been threatened by my learning sign, whether that was fingerspelling as a child or BSL classes when I went to university.
I am intrigued by a partial shared experience of childhood audiology but very different parental expectations transmitted and received by Tomato vs myself. I can see how feeling you've failed your parents is so psychologically traumatic. I wonder how common each of our experiences are in deaf and HOH from childhood people.
I quite like Grayson's brief summary of BSL as a language and focal point of culture - it was very coherent for such a short narration. The segue into the hearing aid covers bit where Grayson shows Tomato's metallic, silver and spiky hearing aid covers was a bit annoying. Grayson photographs these and interprets it as "I am deaf and I am proud". I wonder if that is how Tomato means it, or whether it's something else. I want to steal the design idea - I will tweet and ask Tomato if he minds! My BAHAs would look ace with silver spiky covers. I'm pretty lazy about decorating my BAHAs.
The scene with the friends was interesting, I recognise Fifi who I think is Paula's sister and Paddy Ladd who the older guy with the beard but not the other two people. I absolutely loved what Fifi said "I'm really sorry, Grayson. You're hearing, so I don't mean to offend you, but I feel like we're constantly trying to please hearing people and fit in with what hearing people want. And deaf people have to put up with really an appalling education system, because people can't be bothered to learn to sign." I relate to that as someone for whom oralism could be deemed a success. It is all about D/deaf people making all the effort, we have to listen, lipread, use hearing aids, constantly strain to hear on hearing people's terms.
Sign languages are more on our (deaf people's) terms and hearing people can access it just as much. Tomato chipping in to say that the militants are the hearing people made me laugh out loud. Hearing people in my experience DO only want deaf people to learn how to speak (note not hear, but SPEAK) and not acquire or use a sign language. Why does everyone care how we speak! Paddy chips in to say that deaf people are ignored and neglected, our language (sign language) is neglected. He says that if the group can teach Grayson how important sign language is, they wonder what else they can teach him. Interestingly I know Tomato was bought up Oral as was Paddy. I don't know about Paula and Fifi (I think they might have been oral too based on later scenes) or the other two who don't say anything.
I was a little bit wary of start of the next scene with the Deaf vs Jewish - the two identities were 'set up' against one another. I think Grayson's comment about "history of victimhood" was bang out of order and somewhat bizarre. However this scene was one of the ones which got to me the most. Paula's mum talking to Paula mostly in English with a few signs, she's clearly tried to learn if not very well. It was interesting watching the body language between Paula and her mum, obviously this is an edited clip, possibly a repeatedly rehashed "old argument" with a worn out script but don't all/many families (of origin?) have those.
Paula had a fair few minutes of camera time where she signed very powerfully about how her sign language was her culture and how much it helped her when 'before' (so I presume she's a later learning BSLer?) she was anorexic and depressed. "If I didn't have my language I wouldn't be here" which I wasn't wasn't sure how to parse that, whether as a 'suicidal' type thing, or an identity thing of her personhood was created, expressed and contextualised through sign language.
Sign language helped Paula understand the world and herself better. I'm not a very good signer, I am out of practice cos I don't socialise much with BSLers in person, my arm impairments limit how much I can sign without pain these days and I am crap at putting the work in to bash grammar into my head. BUT learning BSL even to the limited level that I have, is one of the BEST things I have ever done. Within months of starting my level 1 classes my mum commented to me that my confidence seemed to have gone up and far from damaging my hearing or speech as an audiologist claimed it made my speech even better, increased my "tonality" and has helped me with a lot of language. I can relate to what Paula says there to a significant degree even though I am not culturally Deaf and I don't really live much in the D/deaf worlds except a bit online. That's my deafhood too and bollocks to anyone who doesn't like that or wants to diss BSL or my straddling worlds identities.
The bit where Paula tells her mum how much she valued her mum's cultural heritage of Judaism and loved growing up with it, but it being something she can't pass to her children made me want to cry. I had to stop watching this in my lunch hour at work beacuuse "too much emotional blur for work error". I don't know why, but watching Paula say that to her mum and how she reached out to hold her mum and drew her Mum into a hug gets me every time I watch that scene. It's like they struggle to find a shared language, but a hug shows just how much Paula seems to love her mum even though they might not understand one another or one another's point of view all the time. That hug says to me "I love you, I can't be what you want me to be or how you want me to be, but it's not because I don't love you.". It makes me value the good relationship I have with my mum.
That scene was also important cos I think many deaf people exist in a family of origin situation where they cannot be what their hearing parents want them to be, whether that's "able to hear like hearies" "make an effort" or because they have learned sign language which is not a language of the family or one they have bothered/managed to learn. The cultural identities where the children do not share the same expected cultural heritage of the parents, (many) D/deaf, disabled people and LGBTQ people and maybe to some degree religion. Where there isn't that continuity of family parent to child identity I see that strain and perhaps something about creating a family not of origin in a sense of strong communities. Maybe that is why I feel a kinship with the Deaf community even though I'm not that big a D deafie.
Why is Grayson so obsessed with Tomato's hearing aid covers? OK they are badass and cool but they're like the least important bit of the programme. I didn't SEE Tomato wearing them, or any other hearing aids for that matter in the film... Maybe he did and those scenes were edited out, who knows.
Ohno, the deaf people don't have proper access to music trope... Defining deaf by what (you perceive) they don't have there Grayson? *wince* this seems to be a hugely variable topic and probably not worth poking with any sticks here.
In the final scene showing the groups the artwork Grayson goes back off on one saying the people in this programme all have "issues" and I feel it refers back to him admitting to disagreeing with those people on aspects of their identity like he did with the fat women implying a load of health propaganda from earlier in the programme to invalidate their proudness of identity. Grayson does then go on to talk about some of his perceptions of the deaf people and a politicised identity and a number of fairly nuanced points about Deaf identity but I can't help feeling he's not really grokked the Deaf group as much as he has some of his other subjects in this series.
I wasn't sure what to make about the final artwork for the Deaf group. I have heard a few people saying they're unimpressed online from before I saw the programme. I now realise that Tomato has made it his twitter icon. I was prepared not to like it at all, but I think understanding more of Grayson's logic behind it and seeing the finished version makes me like it more. Grayson did make a nice comment to Tomato that he liked the hearing aid covers cos they were a bit angry which is true, deafies are a bit angry and rightfully so.
I had never used a terp to communicate with a BSL user until I started my current job, I had always just blagged it in Deaf spaces or with signing people with what sign I have and had a lot of support and patience from better BSLers and it was social. Using a terp to communicate with BSL users at work because it's professional is SO much harder (for me) in many ways because it makes things much more stilted and does weird things to turn-taking and conversational flow. At least I can watch the BSL user signing for themselves and get tone which non signers don't get anything from. I wonder how much Grayson will have lost engaging with the Deaf people in this programme from not having any sign language himself as even a bit of sign goes SUCH a long way - I wonder how many BSL users would take a crappy signer vs terpped conversation.
I'd say this episode of the series is the least-good of the three, with the least apt artworks for the subjects, only one group the fat women really loved theirs, the Northern Irish Loyalists clearly felt they were being mocked somehow and I think they were.
I think the Deaf people were covered better than they would have been by most hearing presenters and I'd give it a solid 8/10 in that they did cover a number of complex issues and didn't get side tracked into OMG Deaf Eugenics or some of the other boring stereotypes.
