By Richard Medugno, IMPACT Newsletter Editor
SOUND & FURY, the Oscar-nominated Best Documentary Film directed by Josh Aronson, offers up another opportunity for the oral and manual camps to bicker, accuse and abuse each other in the ancient debate about how best to raise a deaf/hearing-impaired child. At the same time, the film also offers us an opportunity to learn - - To see most of both sides of the story. My advice is to chose the second option, the road less traveled. Just say no to the debate and no to the way it continues to be framed: that there is only one right way. There is no "right" way. There is only the best way for your child, you and your immediate family.
The subjects of SOUND & FURY are the Artinians, a middle-class Long Island, New York family. They spent a year and a half in front of Aronson's cameras due to the remarkable misfortune of having the cochlear implant cold war being waged within their own family. They have fallen into the "I'm right/You're wrong" arguments regarding the "miracle cure" for deafness. The difference of opinions leads to a melt-down of once close relationships and to mutual accusations of "child abuse".
The film begins with Heather, the precocious 6-year-old deaf daughter of Deaf parents Peter and Nita, asking for a cochlear implant so she can "hear" and "talk." In no time, one learns that Heather's demand is being fomented by Peter's hearing mother, a meddlesome, abrasive harpy. Though her intentions are good, we know the road to hell is paved with them, grandmother torments her deaf son's family, especially, her weak-willed and confused daughter-in-law, Nita. She demands to be heard, because she knows what's best for her deaf grandchildren.
Grandma Artinian wants Heather to get a cochlear implant so that the girl doesn't have to suffer like Peter had to and has to. Deaf son Peter doesn't seem to be suffering, thank-you-very-much. He appears to be amazingly well-adjusted and successful, working a white collar job as a computer specialist for a downtown company. What more could she want for a son?! Guess he'll never be good enough until he can "hear" like hearing brother Chris.
Chris is a nice enough guy, who's had the misfortune of marrying a bitter CODA (hearing child of deaf adults) named Mari. When Mari gives birth to twin boys and they learn that one of them is deaf, they are devastated. They look to the medical community and not the Deaf community for support. Mari's deaf parents are equally devastated when they learn that Chris and Mari are going to implant the deaf baby. (My 9-year old deaf daughter saw the film with me and later asked, "Why did they want an implant if they already knew how to sign?" Why, indeed.)
Mari doesn't want her child to be "limited" like her parents were. Chris sees the implant as the key to opening all the doors of opportunity for his deaf child. Neither seems to acknowledge that their children were born into a different time and a different social environment than their older deaf relatives - - one where diversity is celebrated and finds ASL as the third most popularly used language in the U.S. One where the same type of technology that created the cochlear implant, creates numerous ways for Deaf people to participate in the mainstream without needing an invasive operation and cumbersome assistive devices,that perhaps, undermine their identity and the supportive Deaf culture.
The film follows the two brothers and their wives as they explore and consider the implant device and the procedure for their children. They visit the audiologist and then successfully implanted children at their oral schools and at their homes. There is also a visit to a deaf club picnic where the community members defend their lives and cultures .
SOUND & FURY is filled with intense and painful moments. One moment is when Peter and Nita decide not to implant Heather and have to defend their decision to hearing relatives who, ironically, refuse to listen. Then there's the scene of the family interacting in the hospital waiting room as Mari's baby is implanted. This is almost unbearable to watch. Another agonzing scene to witness occurs when Peter and Nita inform Peter's parents that they are relocating from Long Island to deaf-friendly Frederick, Maryland, home to one of the state's two deaf schools. The worst is saved for the last when the brothers via Aronson's cameras accuse each other of "child abuse." One for implanting, the other for not.
This is a powerful film and one that will help educate all parents of deaf children. Aronson has done a wonderful job, on what was obviously a labor of love, to give everyone their fair shake and voice. However, it's not perfectly balanced. I would have liked to have seen more discussion about the quality of "hearing"one gets with a cochlear implant, which has been described by deafened people who've been implanted as "everyone sounds like Donald Duck". Also, more footage of Deaf cultural events like, say, an ASL poetry contest, which could have helped balanced the hearing world's insistence that "hearing is better."
Still the film is very even-handed, tilting ever so slightly in the end. Here's where the hearing-bias is revealed: The director [and the New York Times reviewer] seems to think it is a "telling" moment when Nita and Heather discuss the decision not to implant. Nita says "We decided..." and Heather retorts, "YOU decided..." Nina reaffirms, "WE decided." Aronson, by including this segment, seems to be saying, "Look the deaf parents are being heavy-handed. They aren't making this decision with the child's best interests at heart."
Nita and Peter have every right to decide what's best for their 5-year-old, just as Chris and Mari had every right to decide for an implant for their infant. If they had been discussing a tatoo, instead of an implant, the hearing world wouldn't question their parental authority. The accusations of "child abuse" sent chills through me. I can envision a group of zealots organizing without too much encouragement into a "right to hear" movement, trying to take the choice away from parents like myself who don't want to implant their children - - who see deafness more as a difference, than a disability.
Peter Artinian foresees the day when there may be a hearing world, a deaf world and a cochlear implant world. If that does occur, it won't be such a bad thing, as long as the worlds can respect their differences and work together to end the discrimination that a cochlear implantee spoke of in a recent Cochlear Implant Association newletter: "They look at [my] deafness and say they're not going to listen to a handicapped person."
<http://www.deafkids.org/articlejan0102.html>