glee tonight

TheWriteAlex said:
Believe it or not, I watched the show and then went directly to writing that post. It was during the writing of the post that I was able to organize my thoughts, reflect, and articulate an argument. This is one reason I love to write.



I agree that the exposure of ASL is nice. I hate to be such a buzzkill, but I still think it was a token gesture at best, and just used the same old, tired handicapped views of deafness. I am more interested in seeing shows and movies that truly exemplify the abilities and intelligence of Deaf individuals without focusing on their hearing loss. Unfortunately that is very rare. This is something that I am trying to work on changing with my own writing.
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My husband was pissed and offended. He thought that having the deaf kid sing and then "cover him up" was offensive. He thought that the director thought that his "deaf voice" was unbearable for hearing people to listen to, and got rid of it as soon as possible. And then, to have the hearing people be able to sign easily, with no practice at all, was implying that ASL is easy and simple.

I didn't take it that way but, I see his point.
 
faire_jour said:
My husband was pissed and offended. He thought that having the deaf kid sing and then "cover him up" was offensive. He thought that the director thought that his "deaf voice" was unbearable for hearing people to listen to, and got rid of it as soon as possible. And then, to have the hearing people be able to sign easily, with no practice at all, was implying that ASL is easy and simple.

I didn't take it that way but, I see his point.
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Aka... the same Hollywood trite about sign language?
 
faire_jour said:
My husband was pissed and offended. He thought that having the deaf kid sing and then "cover him up" was offensive. He thought that the director thought that his "deaf voice" was unbearable for hearing people to listen to, and got rid of it as soon as possible. And then, to have the hearing people be able to sign easily, with no practice at all, was implying that ASL is easy and simple.

I didn't take it that way but, I see his point.
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What do you mean by "covering him up"? Like he was an embarassment?
 
shel90 said:
What do you mean by "covering him up"? Like he was an embarassment?
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There was a deaf singer, and he was singing alone, but very quickly, all the hearing people joined in. My husband felt like this was to cover up his "deaf voice" because the director felt like it wasn't "good enough" for hearing people to have to listen to for the entire song.

There are other, very legitimite reasons that they could have done it. I disagree with my husband on this.
 
faire_jour said:
There was a deaf singer, and he was singing alone, but very quickly, all the hearing people joined in. My husband felt like this was to cover up his "deaf voice" because the director felt like it wasn't "good enough" for hearing people to have to listen to for the entire song.

There are other, very legitimite reasons that they could have done it. I disagree with my husband on this.
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I would have to watch it to form my opinion on that part...hmmm.

Thanks!
 
I thought the purpose of hearing joining in with deaf is "world in one" (as in the lyric) ... as a form of art.
 
Teamwork is great. But making deaf people feel like them doing music alone is not good enough for hearing does not look good. In fact, we still are in two separate world if hearing people don't see the deaf side of art.


Which reminds me of PBS program I watched. It was about quilting and black people had their own method of quilting and art. They (some kind of quilting organization or museum) rejected their quilting because the sewing wasn't in perfect line or anything like that. They eventually accepted their quilts and saw the art and beauty in it. All they had to do is stop looking for perfection and start listening to their story.
 
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faire_jour said:
My husband was pissed and offended. He thought that having the deaf kid sing and then "cover him up" was offensive. He thought that the director thought that his "deaf voice" was unbearable for hearing people to listen to, and got rid of it as soon as possible. And then, to have the hearing people be able to sign easily, with no practice at all, was implying that ASL is easy and simple.

I didn't take it that way but, I see his point.
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The deaf kid was not singing. He was reciting the lyrics. And the voices of the hearing students did not "cover him up. They complimented his recitation by adding a melody line. I heard his voice clearly throughout the entire scene.

If you watch closely, you will see that the hearing students are looking at the deaf students, and copying their signs. They are following the direction the deaf students are providing in the signing.
 
shel90 said:
I would have to watch it to form my opinion on that part...hmmm.

Thanks!
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Actually, the deaf student was not singing. He was doing a recitation of the lyrics, just as many deaf signing choirs do. The only singing that took place was the underlying harmonies and melody line laid down by the hearing choir. And they were not intended to cover the recitation up, but to compliment it.
 
Lighthouse77 said:
I thought the purpose of hearing joining in with deaf is "world in one" (as in the lyric) ... as a form of art.
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Yes, it was. The whole message was that this art form, whether performed by a singing choir or a signing choir, brought the students together with a common goal.

And I agree. I think people are failing to recognize the art behind the portrayal, and the creative message that was being expressed.
 
c'mon - let's face the truth. If the deaf glee club competes in hearing glee competition, they will fail. that deaf black guy's singing was terrible. if the hearing glee club competes in deaf (and hearing) glee competition, they will fail. they were CRAZY and their dancing was very sexually-suggestive.

together - they performed beautifully. it was beautiful for both deaf and hearing glee goers. they signed beautifully. they sang beautifully. the song was beautiful. all of it amplified the art of glee. in the end - I was happy.
 
Jiro said:
c'mon - let's face the truth. If the deaf glee club competes in hearing glee competition, they will fail. that deaf black guy's singing was terrible. if the hearing glee club competes in deaf (and hearing) glee competition, they will fail. they were CRAZY and their dancing was very sexually-suggestive.

together - they performed beautifully. it was beautiful for both deaf and hearing glee goers. they signed beautifully. they sang beautifully. the song was beautiful. all of it amplified the art of glee. in the end - I was happy.
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There you go. You got the message they were sending.
 
oh btw - I didn't even know there's a deaf glee club but one of the reasons why I'm happy is because of deaf glee club participating in this popular tv show on major tv network channel watched by millions of people. Imagine the shock that hearing population got after that episode! As long as that episode dispelled the hearings' negative stereotype about deafies - mute, limited, dumb, dependent, etc.... I'm HAPPY! :)

oh I bet nobody thought there would be a wheelchair person in glee club either. I didn't either! This episode did a good job showing that whatever the disability you have - you can do it. to quote after this woman from Glee show - "Never let anything distract you from winning. Ever." :)
 
Jiro said:
oh btw - I didn't even know there's a deaf glee club but one of the reasons why I'm happy is because of deaf glee club participating in this popular tv show on major tv network channel watched by millions of people. Imagine the shock that hearing population got after that episode! As long as that episode dispelled the hearings' negative stereotype about deafies - mute, limited, dumb, dependent, etc.... I'm HAPPY! :)

oh I bet nobody thought there would be a wheelchair person in glee club either. I didn't either! This episode did a good job showing that whatever the disability you have - you can do it. to quote after this woman from Glee show - "Never let anything distract you from winning. Ever." :)
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My son's deaf school had a signing glee club. He performed with them for 4 years. They not only did performances at the school, but they did performances for the public at things like ball games where they would sign the National Anthem. I have always found the performances to be very moving.

Yes. I think it went a long way toward showing that one does not have to hear to enjoy music.
 
jillio said:
There you go. You got the message they were sending.
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But what message do you think they were sending when the HoH director kept making mistakes hearing and became a source of buffoonery humor? I had a much bigger problem with that part than I did with the actual signing, and for me, it's hard to watch the signing scene without letting that influence my perception.

While I still think this scene was not as inspiring as it was trying to be, I do believe it's open to interpretation. You choose to see the good intentions in it, but for me the negative connotations outweighed the positive. Different strokes for different folks...
 
TheWriteAlex said:
But what message do you think they were sending when the HoH director kept making mistakes hearing and became a source of buffoonery humor? I had a much bigger problem with that part than I did with the actual signing, and for me, it's hard to watch the signing scene without letting that influence my perception.

While I still think this scene was not as inspiring as it was trying to be, I do believe it's open to interpretation. You choose to see the good intentions in it, but for me the negative connotations outweighed the positive. Different strokes for different folks...
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To answer your question, I believe they were sending the message that this quite often does occur in real life, and perhaps we should all be more aware of the effects of such.

Definately open to personal interpretation, but anytime we show deaf and hearing students engaged in a cooperative effort we have made progress in the protrayal of the deaf student, and we have sent a positive message that it is possible.
 
jillio said:
To answer your question, I believe they were sending the message that this quite often does occur in real life, and perhaps we should all be more aware of the effects of such.
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Oh c'mon Jillio. You don't really believe that, do you? What HoH/deaf person acts the way the deaf director was portrayed? Perhaps someone's late-deafened crazy uncle or something, but do you really think we go around making fools of ourselves like that all day? That scene did nothing to raise awareness. It was only trying to elicit humor at the expense of his hearing loss.


Definately open to personal interpretation, but anytime we show deaf and hearing students engaged in a cooperative effort we have made progress in the protrayal of the deaf student, and we have sent a positive message that it is possible.
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This, I am much more inclined to agree with.
 
didn't they do that with everyone on that show? It seem like majority of people on that show don't act that way in real life. but I don't know, I've only seen a clip (and haven't seen the ASL part at all)
 
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFe2US_wiXg]YouTube - Glee performing "Imagine"[/ame]

to watch whole thing - it can be found at Hulu site (only for American)
 
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