3-19-97

Greetings,

      After reviewing the show several times,  I have found a few disturbing things portrayed in the show.

      1) Marlee Matlin used very weak signing and was reading lips.  A very small percentage of the Deaf population would read lips.  Lip reading hardly parallels Deaf culture.  Sign language was kept to a minimum.  The Sarah (Marlee Matlin) character pales in comparison with the character Marlee played in Reasonable Doubts.

      2) When the mayor spoke to Sarah there was no interpreting of what he was telling her.  There was lack of reasonable accommodations in the show. There should have been someone signing to her as the mayor was speaking to her. I myself read lips well but I always ask for an interpreter to be assisting me every time I have important business with the hearing people such as jury service, lawyers, doctors, police..etc.  The message from this gesture in the show is "It's ok not to have accommodations for the Deaf".

      3) And the mayor's final press conference in the show was another disappointment. There was again no interpreting of what the mayor was saying nor was there any closed captioning seen on the tv screen in which the mayor aides' were watching. I turned off my closed captioning decoder and saw there was nothing on that scene in which a Deaf person could understand what the mayor was saying.  The scene showed Sarah standing right next to the mayor that's it.  I was scratching my head thinking what the hell is this?  There should at least have been an interpreter standing next to the mayor signing what he was saying instead of Sarah just standing there saying 'I know what you mean' and then correcting his sign for 'understanding'.

      4) Spin City was broadcasted by ABC TV which is Disney owned.  It seems that a company with long streak of looking at Deaf people as second class citizens hasn't got our message yet that we want to be treated with respect.

Richard Roehm
Deaf Watch

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