AGB and Nesmuth can never be happy unless they're complaining about something. Neither of them are plugged into Deaf culture enough to care that part of its folk history, this old joke, is being shown to millions. And AGB just isn't happy with, as has been mentioned, alllll the portrayals of deaf people speaking and reading lips; they have to attack the ONE time they're shown signing. Gee, insecure much?
About the commercial perpetuating the myth that Deaf people are jerks...well, okay, from a hearing standpoint they don't come across too well, true. But that's part of the original joke, the way the Deaf people behave in their Deaf world, oblivious to what annoys or inconveniences hearing people -- the exact opposite of the way the world
really is.
In the commercial you can see the driver's friend hunching down and wincing at the horn honking, like he's embarrassed, and of course the neighbor signs "Sorry" at the end, so probably this was an issue when making the ad. But to a certain extent there's no real way around it and hopefully the people watching will be able to put themselves in the Deaf people's shoes instead of thinking "what jerks."
As for the Braille, I think EnAble involves lots of different disabilities as was mentioned, but I didn't even make the connection that Braille following this ad would bolster that misconception about deaf people and Braille. That's a good thought. I remember when I was an ASL 1 student and a seasoned interpreter friend told me how many times people asked her "Do you know Braille?" I thought she was kidding. Then when I started interpreting...
