A Few Thoughts on Deaf Representation in CODA

*A few spoilers.*

CODA, or as I can say now, “Best Picture winner CODA,” is an interesting film from a representation perspective. The comparisons with last year’s Sound of Metal are probably inevitable, and I find it kind of fascinating that, even though CODA is a film that primarily centers around the one hearing member of this family, it feels like it dives even deeper into authentic Deaf representation compared to Sound of Metal. Not least of which because all the major Deaf characters are played by Deaf actors. (I promise that was the last comparison—it’s all CODA from here on out.)

In this movie, the Deaf culture just explodes off the screen. First and foremost, we see it in the language. As Frank, Jackie, and Leo, the fantastic Troy Kotsur, Marlee Matlin, and Daniel Durant communicate in such ecstatically-rich ASL. Their dialogue is entirely fitting for the salt-of-the-earth working-class people that they are, but at the same time, it’s brimming with visual wordplay, vibrantly colorful descriptions, and wonderfully expressive affect. This isn’t a film that feels like the ASL dialogue was clearly written in English and translated on a surface level. Rather, this dialogue lives inside the ASL and the subtitles are doing their best to capture a fraction of it. We see this in comic scenes, like when Frank describes his jock itch symptoms in vivid detail at a doctor’s appointment, as well as more emotional ones, like when Jackie recalls the hearing test Ruby had after she was born. The expressive physicality is even on display when there’s no ASL dialogue at all, like when Leo is at a bar by himself and communicates with the bartender purely through his gestures and affect.

It’s so obvious, ingrained in every fiber of the story, that this is a capital-D Deaf family. There’s the practical stuff, like the way people flicker lights or bang on tables to get each other’s attention, the way everything is full of such blithe noise. There are the cultural norms, the trademark “Deaf blunt” way Frank talks about his and Jackie’s sex life in front of Ruby or the way that scrutinizing Leo’s Tinder prospects becomes a family activity. It comes out in the way Ruby worries about other people making fun of her family or sees how buyers lowball Leo on his fish because they assume they can get away with it. It comes out in the chip on Jackie’s shoulder about the other fishermen’s wives, who she calls “hearing bitches,” reflecting her insecurity at knowing they’re going to leave her out. It comes out in the awkwardness and boredom of the rest of the family attending Ruby’s choir concert, where they quickly resort to making small talk in ASL because they don’t know what’s happening onstage, where their only way to gauge how Ruby does on her solo is to look at the facial expressions of other people in the crowd.

I’ve seen some pushback on the film over the way Frank and Jackie seem to regard Ruby more as their live-in interpreter than their daughter, relying on her for everything, but in the context of the film, I can understand it. Gloucester, Massachusetts, isn’t a huge place—it’s a smaller city than where I live, and back when I interpreted for a school district, I pretty much knew that there was no way I’d get a sub if I called in sick. It could be really hard to get an interpreter on short notice, and so I can easily see one of the Rossis needing a last-minute doctor appointment, or even just getting frustrated at their appointment getting postponed three times because the clinic couldn’t secure an interpreter, and saying, “Well, let’s just have Ruby do it.” And once they opened that door, I’m sure it was hard to close it. Frank, Jackie, and Leo are proud people, and hearing people who don’t understand Deaf culture are good at making it seem like hiring an interpreter is such a hardship. I can picture them not wanting to “beg” the clinic, or the fishermen’s association, or the school, to get them an interpreter when “Ruby’s right there.” It’s not a big community and the Rossi family seems pretty recognizable within it, so I’m sure they’ve experienced hearing people pressuring them to have Ruby interpret instead of getting a professional, and at some point, they just 1) stopped fighting it and 2) got complacent, relying on their daughter to help them “keep it in the family.”

This is reflective, too, in the way that hearing people, like the other fishermen, automatically gravitate toward Ruby and bypass the rest of her family entirely. It’s just easier to talk prices with Ruby, to not bother with interpreting at all, to not have to try to interact with someone who communicates in a different way. When Leo finds out Ruby isn’t going to try out for musical school, he blows up at her, furious that she’d give up that chance and instead stay home to “take care of” the rest of the family. It’s about her and the opportunity she’d be losing out on, but it’s also about him and their parents too. He argues that they got along fine before Ruby came along, and that sounds harsh, but he means that he could figure it out, they could make themselves understood to those around them without relying on the easy out of this live-in interpreter. In order for the rest of the Rossis to be seen as independent and successful, in order to make hearing people adapt for once and learn how to communicate with them, Ruby can’t sacrifice her own dreams and stay home to be that crutch for everyone.

I like that Frank, Jackie, and Leo are messy and imperfect, and I like that they aren’t “model Deaf characters.” They’re loud and flawed and coarse and real, and their Deafness is woven into the story in such organic ways. Rather than observing this “other culture” from the outside, it feels like hearing people without any connection to the Deaf world are being invited inside of it, to see what it’s like and how it feels in all its funny, aggravating, affecting, expressive beauty.