Deaf Utopia

Alicia Ponce

Professor Wexler

ENG 495ESM

13 December 2012

Deaf Utopia

            Deaf Utopia is something that all deaf individuals think about. What if they lived in a world where all the hearing people no longer put them down? This is a world where all Deaf people are accommodated to the best of their abilities. The movie Babel focuses on a variety of characters where they are all connected to one another. One character, Chieko, is a Deaf Japanese girl who recently lost her mother and is going through hard times with her father. The way the producers perceived her as a true Deaf individual isn't what Deaf people are.

            Chieko is known as a rebel during the whole movie. She experiences the loss of her mother, having to communicate with her father, and experiencing anything a normal teenager would during hard times. Watching Chieko go through the partying stage and expressing herself through sexual desires isn't what all Deaf people do in reality. This is one way the hearing people have put down the deaf community. The movie portrays all the Deaf Japanese girls as partiers. The audience doesn't get to experience the Deaf Japanese girls where they don't party. This gives the misconception that all Deaf Japanese girls are partiers. The producers should have made it clear that when someone is in mourning, they are more typical to go through a rebellious stage, despite the fact they can hear or not.

            Another example of Cheiko being a rebel is when she flashed her private area to the boy that was checking her out in the middle of the restaurant while she is hanging out with her girlfriends. The guy doesn't see her signing so he assumes that she's hearing. Later on, when she is playing a video game with one of the girls, he tries to approach her from behind her back. Being deaf, she can't hear his greeting, and he tries to tap her on the shoulder. When she started signing to her friend and she interpreted for her, he said "never mind" and walked away. That's a putdown by the hearing world. In a Deaf Utopia, there would never be a single person who would say "never mind" and walk away. They will stay and use paper to write back and forth, use sign language, or talk slowly for those who can lip-read.  

            The Deaf Utopia allows all deaf individuals to think about how it would be better that they wouldn't be ignored by any hearing individual as shown in Babel. "Its function lies not in helping us to imagine a better future but rather in demonstrating our utter incapacity to imagine such a future—our imprisonment in a non-utopian present without historicity or futurity—so as to reveal the ideological closure of the system in which we are somehow trapped and confined." (Jameson 46). It's hard for deaf individuals to believe such a future could happen because all of them know it's hard to change their minds to make lives better. It's a part of risk management because what if it doesn't work out to be the best solution? They will change it back instead of trying to move on with better solutions.

            While the movie shows there is diversity within all the characters, Cheiko is one of the most diverse characters of the movie. "The history of capitalism is one in which enormous human diversity has blossomed and been socially articulated along lines of class, race, nation, gender, sexuality, religiosity, as well as urbanism, technology, literacy, institutions of social welfare, specialized expertise–all of which can be captured by the term difference." (Martin 5). Her character is deaf, Japanese, and of the upper-class level. While she may be diverse with her deafness, it's typical of Americans to view Japan as rich. Cheiko lives in a penthouse with her father. Her father is always gone on business trips, which leaves Cheiko alone at home. This type of situation is very common of those in the upper-class society.

            Another perspective shown about deaf people in Babel is the form of communication they use. Sign language is the main way of communication because it's visual and it allows them to easily communicate about any topic. This is a part of Deaf Utopia where there are no communication barriers. In Babel, there are several communication barriers that are common in the Deaf world. Cheiko is not a representative in some ways of how to communicate effectively with a deaf person. There were several situations where Cheiko or another person would explain that a person who wants to speak to Cheiko needs to face her and speak slowly for her to understand what is being said. Lip-reading is not a perfect method of communication between the deaf and hearing. A better way to communicate is something else that Cheiko did: using a pad of paper and pen to write her answers to the person asking questions. However, this is also a misrepresentation of how to use this method of communication because the hearing person doesn't write back. The hearing person needs to be able to write back so that the deaf person doesn't have to read lips. Babel should have presented better ways to communicate with a deaf person better than they did.

            Deaf Utopia is a place where all deaf individuals don't have to worry about communication barriers. The Deaf Utopia has all sorts of diverse people where deaf doesn't count as a part of diversity. Every hearing person that lives in the Deaf Utopia would be able to communicate with sign language or pen and paper. There would be no trying to lip-read within the conversations. All deaf people would be accommodated, unlike Cheiko in Babel.

Works Cited

Babel. By Guillermo Arriaga. Perf. Brad Pitt. 01 Distribution, 2007. DVD.

Jameson, Frederick. "The Politics of Utopia." New Left Review. N.p., 2004. Web.

Martin, Randy. "Where Did the Future Go?" Logosonline. Logos 5.1, 2006. Web.