I had some additional thoughts I wanted to write up on a few of the Best Picture nominees from this past year. I meant to do it shortly after the ceremony, but I got distracted by all the non-Oscar-related subjects I hadn’t been writing about during the run-up to the awards. So, I’m back now, digging a little deeper into Sound of Metal beyond the scope of my original review. In particular, I want to explore some of the facets of the film’s depiction of Deafness (spoilers.)
I won’t get into my full spiel on hearing actors playing Deaf characters again, so just a quick summary: 1) I get why Riz Ahmed was cast as Ruben, and I did think he was very good in the role, though I maintain that a hard-of-hearing or late-deafened actor definitely could have performed that part, and 2) there was absolutely no reason that Paul Raci should’ve been playing Joe. (Side note: at the Oscars, there was a comment about how much Paul Raci “taught us all” about Deaf/hard-of-hearing inclusion that made me want to scream.) Rather, I’m going to focus more on the film itself, the story.
As I said in my review, there are a lot of things, both large and small, that the film does really well in bringing hearing viewers into the Deaf world. Its Oscar for Best Sound was incredibly well-deserved. There’s a scene early in the film of Ruben going about his ordinary morning routine, and all the little sounds of him bustling around his trailer turn into its own miniature symphony, which then of course gets flipped on its head when he goes through the same routine after his hearing loss and everything sounds fuzzy and dampened. I appreciate that the film depicts the nuance that Ruben’s Deafness doesn’t mean “Ruben’s world is now completely silent.” There are these faraway, underwater-esque distorted noises that he hears, which maybe causes even more frustration than not being able to hear at all, since he’s straining to listen but can’t make sense of what he’s hearing. Similarly, the film does really well in showing what having a Cochlear implant “sounds” like. So many hearing people think of it as a miracle cure, but the way sound is processed through an implant isn’t the way it’s processed through a human cochlea. In the film, this is obviously Ruben’s very rude awakening, spending tens of thousands of dollars on metallic-sounding “hearing” that’s a far cry from what he used to have. The film also shows how an implant works best having face-to-face conversations in a quiet environment. When Ruben is out walking on the street, or later, at Lou’s dad’s party, he’s disoriented by the confused jumble of noise all around him and he can’t follow what people are saying. I really felt for him as he retreated into the background of the party, slowly coming to grips with the fact that his implants will never be a ticket back into the world as he experienced it before his hearing loss.
Then there’s the plethora of day-to-day aspects of Deaf life incorporated into the narrative. I appreciate seeing the various assistive devices employed at the Deaf/hard-of-hearing sober house, such as Joe using transcriber software to caption his words when he and Ruben first meet, and Ruben later uses a captioned phone (if I recall correctly, we don’t see anyone making calls on a video phone or using a video relay services to make calls through an interpreter.) And on a much more basic level, there are all the little things that Deaf people do to make life more accessible to them, like flashing the overhead lights on or off or pounding a table to get someone’s attention. The meal table at the sober house doesn’t feature any spoken communication, but much like Ruben’s hearing, it too is far from silent – the residents’ signed conversations around the table are exuberant and boisterous, punctuated by the sounds of hands impacting in emphatic signs and the noises of their cutlery clanging and chairs scraping. We see how much value the community places on their school, in raising Deaf/hard-of-hearing children who are well-informed and sure of themselves, and how they prize their language and recognize the honor of having a part in teaching it to the younger generation.
However, while watching the film, I was really bothered by Ruben’s lack of equal communication access early on. During his time at the sober house and among the Deaf community, he comes along well in learning ASL, but when he first arrives, he’s both bewildered and overwhelmed. He can’t understand what these Deaf people are signing any more than he can hear what Lou or other hearing people are saying. And there are times when his communication access is taken into account – like I said, Joe initially communicates with Ruben through transcription software, and there’s a scene where another resident types on an open Word document to give Ruben a quick one-line summary of what Joe is addressing the group about. But until he gets to the point where he can communicate well in ASL, his equal communication access is pretty lacking.
It’s most egregious during Ruben’s first NA meeting at the sober house. When Joe asks Ruben to introduce himself, Joe reads Ruben’s lips to interpret his spoken words for the rest of the group, but then the rest of the meeting proceeds in ASL, which Ruben doesn’t know yet. And look, I get that part of the reason Ruben is there is to be immersed in the Deaf community and start to learn how to function as a Deaf person. But he’s also there as an addict during an emotionally-volatile time in which he needs the support of the program. What’s he going to get out of that meeting if he doesn’t know what anyone is signing? His sponsor specifically researched and sought out this program for him, realizing that it wouldn’t do Ruben any good to someplace where everyone was speaking and he wouldn’t be able to hear them – but how is this any different? There should have been a live captioner there, probably working in tandem with an interpreter (the interpreter voices what the participants are signing, and the captioner types out that interpretation in English for Ruben to read.) Given how vital communication access is within the Deaf community, it feels like a massive oversight for them to neglect his communication needs like that.
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