Banjo's World

“Historians are like deaf people who go on answering questions that no one has asked them.”

There's an e-mail being forwarded all over the internet, Shoshannah Stern is asking everybody to spread the news about her character, Bonnie on 'Jericho' finally being given the opportunity to have a scene only in sign language without voice over or simcom (simultaneous communication). As some of you may remember, I did a vlog on the TV show regarding her deaf character. I mentioned that strong clichés were written in for the deaf character. Shoshannah is fluent in ASL (American Sign Language). She was born and raised in a deaf family. As it turned out, Shoshannah has been encouraging the producers and the writers to add a more realistic version of the character rather than the version we've been given since the beginning of the season. Here's the circulated e-mail from Shoshannah.

Hello, dear family and friends!

This Wednesday, November 29, is a very special episode of Jericho for me. As some of you might know, I am a regular on this show, which airs on CBS at 8 pm Pacific time. There are so many people on the show, however, that there is so much ground to cover. I've been trying for a scene ONLY in sign language (no voice over or simcom) from the beginning. The writers and producers have been amazing and even let me try my hand in writing part of the scene! It will be aired THIS Wednesday. I don't know how much of the scene will actually make it because of time constraints, but I would LOVE if you guys would watch and help me spread the word! This is a big step for everybody within the deaf community and of course for my character, Bonnie. Please, please watch... or at least TIVO it! Feel free to forward this to whoever you think may be interested!

Love,
Shoshannah

Something happened on Monday, September 25, 2006. It made a big entrance. Nobody saw it coming. What was it?

'Heroes'.

NBC had aired the pilot episode of the new TV series, 'Heroes'. Though I will let you in onto a secret, I already had watched the pilot prior to the airing. I managed to get my hands on a pre-air screener copy of the episode. 'Heroes' is a cross between 'X-Men' and 'Unbreakable', only without the costumes. At least that's the impression I got. It also has a touch of 'The 4400'. People in this show aren't highly skilled in using their special abilities; they just had discovered it.

When I first heard about the show, I was deeply skeptical that it was going to be an interesting series. I was glad to be wrong; the show is absolutely fantastic. I don't remember TV being this good in many years. I was complaining a few years ago that there were absolutely nothing worth watching on the TV and that the good shows were being taken off the air. 'Firefly' anybody?

• 24
• The 4400
• Battlestar Galactica
• CSI: Las Vegas
• CSI: New York
• Curb Your Enthusiasm
• Grey's Anatomy
• Jericho
• Lost, My Name is Earl
• The Office
  
• Prison Break
• The Sopranos
  
• Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
• Supernatural
  
• Veronica Mars

Last week, me and some other well-known deaf bloggers were invited to an early screening of Mösdeux's latest short film, 'Resonare'. It stars Chad W. Taylor, a fellow Canadian living California. He co-founded Mösdeux with Wayne Betts Jr. and the company is based in Roseville, California.

The objective of a short film is to demonstrate the skills of the young filmmakers. They made a powerful and successful demonstration with their previous short film, 'Vital Signs'. Clearly, 'Resonare' is an experimental short film. Like most short films should be, contain a simple storyline making it easier for the audience to follow. However, not many are made without dialogues. That's refreshing as far too many filmmakers often rely too heavily on the spoken/signed dialogues.

Very few filmmakers have made the attempt to film an entire film with no dialogues, or a foreign language. For instance, Mel Gibson's 'The Passion of the Christ'. The movie contained a dead language and not many could understand what was being said, and he's doing the same with his upcoming film, 'Apocalypto'.

As I promised to Chad and Wayne, I cannot share many details on the short film, as it would spoil the entertainment of watching a movie without knowing what it's all about. The story itself is rather simple which is what it's needed for a film of this length. I must applaud Wayne Betts, Jr. for a well-done job on cinematography. Not only that, the editing and transitions between shots was well done. Especially for a young filmmaker who's still experimenting with the art of film. The opening sequence, I thought it was well-designed and simple like it should be.

I enjoyed the film for its simplicity. I must say that a certain content of the story was somewhere strange yet humourous at the same time. I don't want to spoil it for everybody, but I do feel that I got what the object featured in the short film was in reference to. I hope many of you will get it. Oh, I must say that Amber Stanton is quite a lovely actress; she has been featured in quite a few Mösdeux productions. She wasn't given much to do in this production; she's barely a supporting actress. Chad gave a decent performance, but like I said, the story was quite simple and easy to follow, he isn't required to demonstrate a lot of emotions or anything extraordinary. He simply accomplished the task required as an actor.

Keith Wann, a child of deaf adults (CODA) and a well-known comedian among the deaf. He has a number of video footage of his comedian routines and more on Google Video. He was previously involved with some commercials produced by Mösdeux for HOVRS (Hands On Video Relay Service). Keith is quite a talented comedian; I have to say because of his knowledge of the deaf community and the hearing world. He took a 180-degree turn on this role, as it wasn't a role he was accustomed to, more of a dramatic role. Like some well-known comedians, they also are talented at demonstrating different emotions and characteristic traits. For instance, Robin Williams, an extraordinary comedian and he's one of the best dramatic actors today. If Keith Wann continues with taking on different roles, he will be able to achieve a lot more.

Oh yes, while I'm giving a highly positive review on the short film, I just have to give one tiny criticism... next time, get a better wig. As a movie buff, it made me smile to see such a bad wig because I saw it as a reminder that Wayne Betts, Jr. and Chad W. Taylor are still a couple of aspiring young filmmakers who are experimenting with the art of film.

Great job to Wayne Betts, Jr, Chad W. Taylor and everybody involved with the short film. The short film clocked in at 11 minutes and 46 seconds long. Though it may not be the final running time because they are still doing some last minute work on the audio. I send my best wishes to the aspiring young deaf filmmakers out there in the world to make a wave in the film industry. Wayne Betts, Jr and Chad W. Taylor are just the beginning of the wave.

Watch 'Resonare' on November 14th at www.mosdeux.com.

I know, I know... it's a subject many people consider to be old news. However, I have to disagree. It is an ongoing problem, it is still happening in some places and nobody's doing anything about it. I should know because I used to attend a school for the deaf.

For many years, I have never been a firm supporter of residential schools for the deaf. I've made that clear, no doubt about that. I personally don't believe a child should be away from home for 5 days a week. Children need to live at home with their families; living in a residence with house parents is not what I consider a healthy environment for a child.

There's a reason why dozens of children aren't meant to live together especially when the age range can be anywhere from a toddler to a teenager. House parents are often uncertified and unqualified to deal with personal matters especially molestation.

I was a day student by choice, but that didn't stop me from learning more about what goes on behind closed doors at the residence building. It's a subject you never speak of at the school because people strongly discourage it. In fact, I was once a peer helper and they even discouraged the students from discussing the past cases of sexual abuse. I once asked a teacher if there had ever been a case of sexual abuse at the school I attended. The teacher said that there have been cases then I asked for more details and the request was declined. Therefore, I was forced to do some research online and I managed to find some of the legal cases involving some cases. I'm grateful that we are able to access a large number of legal cases on the Internet in Canada.

As many of you people should be aware, teenagers are full of sexual hormones. If a teenager was basically raised by a series of house parent its whole life that person is more likely to have the wrong idea of what sex is about. It's the duty of the parents to have a bond with their children and to educate them about life. The house parents are just there for the money, nothing more. Many house parents are uncertified in these fields. I know there are some people who were born into broken and dysfunctional families, but you have to remember that sexual abuse is not a joke either. Yes, there are biological parents who abuse and molest their own children which is a horrific act of violation against one's will but that's another subject.

I'm a good friend of a former house parent; this friend of mine had some horror stories to share with me and some of these that I wish I were never told in the first place. Though we shouldn't ignore these because that'll only make us ignorant to the problems in today's residential schools. Deaf children are basically stripped of their rights and they cannot defend themselves from the monsters. They have no voice and I do know for a fact that quite a few schools imposes severe restrictions on what a student can use the Internet for. Especially when it come to instant messaging applications. It's quite a sad state they are in.

Anybody remember Jericho? It was one of the worst cases in the history of deaf education. It was like a sex club in there. This was a provincial school in the province of British Columbia. In fact, it's one of the factors in the shutdown of the school back in the early 1990s. Even worse, not too far from where Jericho is, there was another school that was just as bad or worse. It took place in the state of Washington, a newspaper in Seattle did a major coverage of it in the 1990s and they were unsuccessful in getting the stories verified but by the victims.

Though I have heard that the school has gone under a change of administration and a great deal of improvements were made in recent years. I hope it's for good and that they never let such an incident from taking place again under their watch.

If you wish to learn more of what happened at Jericho, more information can be found on the Internet or you can e-mail me and I will provide you some information on some Canadian legal cases and incidents that happened in some schools across Canada.

At one particular residential school for the deaf, the other students told me of one wheelchair-bound student who was violently abused on a frequent basis. He was anally raped and often attended the infirmary with a swollen anus. The nurse made attempts to protect the student, the administration swept it all under the rug. The nurse ended up resigning from her position. On some nights, he made attempts to escape through the window and crawl onto the ground in hope of escaping from some of the students who had violated his body against his will. He wasn't able to walk; he used all of his strength to crawl away from these monsters.

In many cases, male students were often molested by older male students and in some cases, female students. There have been some cases where they were molested by house parents.

At the school I attended, when I was a student at the secondary building on the campus; I was made aware of a series of activities behind closed doors at the residence building. One of them being a sexually charged version of 'truth or dare' game. There is several sexual abuse cases I know of that were never reported to the authorities. None of these cases should ever go unreported because it's wrong, just plainly wrong. No people should go unpunished for their crimes they've committed. The top reason why a victim doesn’t report is because of the fear of what would happen to them if it became public. Many of you know that other students because of malicious gossiping and backstabbing often target the victims. I don't condemn them for being scared but they do need the courage to report these crimes because these people may be hurting somebody else.

I'm not advocating the shutdown of residential schools for the deaf, though I do think it would be a great benefit if they didn't have a residence but that would only force the schools to shut down due to the low enrollment rate. If you want to save the schools from being shut down, you should take great measurements to ensure that the students are well protected from being abused.

I know this is a sensitive topic for many deaf people out there, but people need to realize that it is a problem and it shouldn't be swept under the rug. It has been tackled at some schools for the deaf but I don't believe many are making the efforts to ensure that their students are well protected. I'm not looking to attack people nor am I looking forward to being attacked by people. I just believe that people need to spread the awareness of these problems and that they need to be resolved now. I consider myself to be Deaf and I do take in how the others may feel toward some subjects but I don't believe in beating around the bush. People shouldn't be pretending that it's not happening. Nobody has spoken up for the deaf students, just like nobody spoke up for the deaf during the holocaust.

We may be known as the invisible minority, but our problems shouldn't be invisible.

DR. PHIL: The problem we have here is that this chicken won't realize that he must first deal with the problem on "THIS" side of the road before it goes after the problem on the "OTHER SIDE" of the road. What we need to do is help him realize how stupid he's acting by not taking on his "CURRENT" problems before adding "NEW" problems.

OPRAH: Well I understand that the chicken is having problems, which is why he wants to cross this road so bad. So instead of having the chicken learn from his mistakes and take falls, which is a part of life, I'm going to give this chicken a car so that he can just drive across the road and not live his life like the rest of the chickens.

GEORGE W. BUSH: We don't really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road, or not. The chicken is either against us, or for us. There is no middle ground here.

DONALD RUMSFELD: Now to the left of the screen, you can clearly see the satellite image of the chicken crossing the road.

ANDERSON COOPER/CNN: We have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet been allowed to have access to the other side of the road.

JOHN KERRY: Although I voted to let the chicken cross the road, I am now against it! It was the wrong road to cross, and I was misled about the chicken's intentions. I am for it now, and will remain against it.

JUDGE JUDY: That chicken crossed the road because he's GUILTY! You can see it in his eyes and the way he walks.

PAT BUCHANAN: To steal the job of a decent, hardworking American.

MARTHA STEWART: No one called me to warn me which way that chicken was going. I had a standing order at the Farmer's Market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a certain level.

DR SEUSS: Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad? Yes, the chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed I've not been told.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: To die in the rain. Alone.

JERRY FALWELL: Because the chicken was gay! Can't you people see the plain truth in front of your face? The chicken was going to the "other side." That's why they call it the "other side. Yes, my friends, that chicken is gay. And if you eat that chicken, you will become gay too. I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the liberal media whitewashes with seemingly harmless phrases like the other side." That chicken should not be free to cross the road. It's as plain and simple as that!

GRANDPA: In my day we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Somebody told us the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough.

BARBARA WALTERS: Isn't that interesting? In a few moments, we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heart warming story of how it experienced a serious case of molting, and went on to accomplish its life long dream of crossing the road.

JOHN LENNON: Imagine all the chickens in the world crossing roads together in peace.

ARISTOTLE: It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.

BILL GATES: I have just released eChicken2006, which will not only cross roads, but also will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook. Internet explorer is an integral part of eChicken. The Platform is much more stable and will never cra...#@&&^( C \..... reboot.

ALBERT EINSTEIN: Did the chicken really cross the road, or did the road move beneath the chicken?

BILL CLINTON: I did not cross the road with THAT chicken. What is your definition of chicken?

AL GORE: I invented the chicken!

COLONEL SANDERS: Did I miss one?

The upcoming film, ‘Babel’ is generating a lot of buzz. Alejandro González Iñárritu directed the movie and written by Guillermo Arriaga. To summarize the plot, two boys in a desert test the range of a rifle, it collides the lives of four separate groups of strangers instantly. This is a movie that is generating a lot of buzz in the film industry and may be somewhere controversial because of the politics involved. This movie involves Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Elle Fanning a sister of Dakota Fanning’s. I’m not going to discuss these actors, what I want to focus on is the deaf and mute character.

Yes, you read it right… deaf and mute. That’s what you’ll find in all articles and reviews on this upcoming movie. She’s a rebellious deaf Japanese teenage girl; it sounds like a role that a real-life deaf actress can perform. Only the actress isn’t deaf in real life, her name is Rinko Kikuchi. I can understand how they would prefer actresses who can hear and speak, as it would prevent any communication issues from occurring. Still, to make a character more authentic, an actual deaf actress would be better suited for the role especially when the character is ‘mute’ to start with. As much as it’s great to see a deaf character getting a significant role in a movie like ‘Babel’, but the real question I have is… why didn’t they hire a deaf actress to take on the role?

This reminds me of the controversy that surrounded the movie, ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’ because they had hired Chinese actresses instead of Japanese actresses to portray the Japanese characters. It’s kind of ironic, as it’s known that the Chinese and the Japanese people have a long-standing feud. Like I said, it’s about making the character as authentic as possible. Hiring a Chinese actress to portray a Japanese character can be problematic, as they look quite different. Yes, they do look different. Maybe they look all the same to some of you, but if you take another look, you’ll see that they don’t look the same.

It reminds me of how they hired Rob Lowe to portray a deaf man in the TV mini-series, ‘The Stand’. Even though he is deaf in one ear, but he is not deaf and while he is a decent actor, he did a poor portrayal of a deaf character in the mini-series. It seems like some filmmakers are too afraid to take a risk and hire a deaf actor/actress to play a role of a deaf character because of communication issues. If they actually hired one, they’ll realize that it isn’t such a bad thing after all.

Remember how Trudy Suggs, a child born to deaf parents, she’s a freelance writer who exposed an ad campaign by Saturn, the car manufacturer. I remember hearing about this in the late 90s’ or early 2000s’; it was quite a big topic among the deaf community. Saturn’s ad firm had hired a hearing woman to portray a deaf character in a Saturn commercial. That television commercial really ruffled some feathers in the deaf community. It was the proof that there were still prejudices in the media industry toward the deaf and people with disabilities.


UPDATE: Trudy Suggs left a comment here on my blog adding more details to what I had wrote on the 'Saturn' commercial featuring a deaf character. Below here is her comment left on my blog.

Stumbled across this website by accident - first, thank you for spelling my name right. :-)

I should probably clarify the Saturn fiasco; it's not as clear-cut as it seems here (unfortunately). What happened was that Saturn had a "Real People, Real Cars" ad campaign that featured REAL owners - not actors by any measure - and one of them was Holly Daniel, who claimed to be deaf. She never once told Saturn she was hearing. It was only after some deaf people who had gone to church with her or had her as their interpreter at LSU told me that she was actually hearing that the story became bizarre.

People in the Deaf community were furious that a hearing woman would not only fake being deaf, but also make $75,000 off it. So that was the issue, especially because she was NOT an actress nor did she tell the truth to Saturn. However, Saturn should have been more responsible in bringing her onboard.