El Deafo (2022) User Reviews

Realistic Portrayal of Late-Deafened Person during the 1970s

[om-34 · 8/10 · 9 January 2022]

This serial focuses more on the experiences of a late-deafened child rather than the Deaf culture, community, language, and people. Additionally, the story takes place in the 1970s, not the current time, despite some anachronistic elements.

As a Deaf person who grew up in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I recognised two elements that clearly established the storyline in the 1970s. One is Martha's wish that the television programmes had the subtitles (the first programme to be broadcasted with closed-captioning in the US was on 24 March 1980). Another one is the awkwardly bulky hearing aid and microphone systems that began to appear in the classrooms during the 1970s.

The serial does a very good job of showing the biggest issue with the oralism: the difficulties in reading lips, in keeping up with the group discussions (especially at the dinner tables, sleepovers, classrooms, etc.). Not to mention the scenarios where the lip-reading is difficult if not impossible: moustaches and beards; person's face not in direct view when speaking; mumblings; people overlapping each other when talking at same time; person speaking so fast or with strong accent (Americans have hard time reading British or German, for instance); in the dark; and so forth.

Sometimes, the hearing aids (and cochlear implants) aren't the "magic bullet" in compensating for the hearing loss as the character, Martha, found out. The people's voices are often heard as muffled, which is exactly what many hearing aid users experience to the varying degrees. During the PE class, the glaring issue was obvious: the PE teacher wore the microphone, but her classmates were yelling to pass the ball to them, confusing Martha and causing her to play poorly. When the teacher stepped out of the classroom to use the toilet, Martha heard the whole thing. That was exactly what we as schoolchildren experienced in the 1970s! One of my hard-of-hearing classmates could understand the conversation so she took the earpiece out for the whole class to eavesdrop: the teacher mocked about one of us who had what was later labelled as high-functioning autism and about some of us giving her hard time. Imagine her horror when she returned to the classroom! Afterwards, the entire equipment was promptly returned to the manufacturer.

At one point, her microphone was broken and sent to the repair centre in Silver Springs, Maryland. Martha had to make do without it for a several weeks, and it showed badly in her composure and schoolwork. Back then, we didn't have Fedex or overnight service so it took a while for the package to be shipped and returned.

It is also painful to watch Martha feeling so extremely conscious about her hearing loss. My experience with the late-deafened children and adults were not dissimilar from Martha. Some of them would rather pretend that they don't have hearing loss, and it can lead to the awkward, embarrassing conversations or situations. Martha was trying to hide the bulky body-mounted hearing aid and cables because it really stood out prominently and impossible to overlook.

When her mother enrolled herself and her daughter in the ASL class, Martha recoiled and had a meltdown there. That is typical attitude for some late-deafened people. After her meltdown, they had ice cream at the diner where, by coincidence, the deaf couple was signing to each other at another table. Her mother pointed out how beautiful they communicated in sign language, but Martha denounced it because she didn't want people to stare at her when she signs. Seeing her mother's dejection was also painful, too. Back then, it was mostly true with people staring and mocking us when we signed in public.

At one point, the serial is spot on about the so-called "token deaf". Sometimes, the hearing people "adopted" us because we were seen as a novelty and exotic, showcasing their "progressive thinking". Yet, it did more harm than good for us because they tend to focus on our deafness rather than on our persona. Sometimes, they are so patronising and giving me the cheesy praise ("Wow, you can do that!", "How do you do that if you can't hear?!?"). I heard the same from the African-Americans who complained about their white colleagues mentioning, "I have three black friends.", "I used to have a black student as my roommate at the college.", and like.

The part about superhero is common fantasy amongst the deaf/Deaf and hard-of-hearing children who want to dispel the injustice caused by the hearing children and people. I believe that might have been attributed to the popular 15-minute ASL show broadcasted by PBS in 1978 or 1979. One of the show's regular skits on the show had a superhero who would fly out to show people how to sign properly. One hilarious skit showed her being so passionate about signing "I love you" that the guy fell in love with her rather than another woman he was trying to woo.

What's so cool is seeing the character signing in the cartoon show. Of course, using the hearing person as an ASL teacher is considered "taboo" today. Yet, the serial took place in the late 1970s when the ASL classes weren't as common as other foreign languages unless taught by the departments of communication disorders (that's what they were called back then) at the universities and community colleges.

I certainly hope that the serial would be expanded to show whether Martha had softened her perspectives of her hearing loss over the time and whether she had broadened the communication modes to include the sign language and emerging assistive technologies.

Heartwarming Mini-Series Based On A Book

[jeremycrimsonfox · 9/10 · 25 February 2022]

El Deafo is a mini-series based on the comic by Cece Bell, which is based on her childhood experience. Set in Cece's childhood, Cece tells the story of how she became deaf, with the characters all portrayed as rabbits. After suffering an illness that causes her to go death, Cece is given hearing aids, and develops a herosona, El Deafo to get through life.

Basically, if you read the book, the mini-series stays close to it (with the only changes being to replace songs and fictional characters that are copyrighted by another company, like having Cece get sick when she sings the theme song for Mightyvolt, a hero made up for the show, instead of Yellow Submarine, which is sung by The Beatles, and some scenes of nudity in the book were not in the show, possibly to ensure a lower content rating). Also, the show manages to portray how life is like for a deaf person, as when Cece goes deaf, we don't hear any dialogue or sounds other than the real Cece's narration and some muffled speech (which puts the viewers in Cece's shoes), and once the hearing aids are worn, the speech is filtered to sound like it's heard from the hearing aid.

The story is neat, as the series shows Cece and her herosona, El Deafo, as she grows up in school, dealing with issues and challenges a deaf person back in the era this is set in, and the voice actors all do a good job, as the series keeps with the subject and stays within the source material it is adapting for the most part. This is a must watch for parents with kids.

A Quality Deaf Cartoon -.-

[a34trgv1 · 2/10 · 1 February 2023]

If you've ever come across a dish that was a mishmash of 2 main ingredients that are good separate but utterly terrible together, El Deafo is that but for your eyes. It combines 2 premise that, separately, would have made fore some enjoyable cartoons for kids and adults to enjoy. Together, though, they fuse into an abysmal cartoon with no clear identity of its own. From the awful writing to the irritating audio choices, El Deafo accomplishes the unfortunate feat of sinking below my mildly low expectations.

Based on the books (and in turn, true story) by CeCe Bell, El Deafo follows the life of a young girl would struggles with her hearing impairment and trying to make new friends. All the while she has these daydreams in which she imagines she's the brave hearing impaired superhero known as El Deafo, who fights villains based on CeCe's real life events. Right out of the gate we have our first issue with this show: these 2 premises DON'T work together! One could've made for a dramatic, insightful and honest slice of life show while the other would've made for a funny, action packed and thrilling super hero show. Combined, however, these premises clash with one another as one tries to overtake the other and the show itself suffers for it. The pacing is also so slow it would make a turtle impatient. Even though there are just 3 episodes that are 30 minutes each, they all feel like 90 minute movies with way too much time being spent on CeCe trying to communicate with people and her having falling outs with her friends. We also have the daydream scenes that rehash what was already established and are ultimately superfluous to the rest of the narrative. On top of all that, this is a painfully unfunny show. None of the the jokes land so much as a smirk from me and the running gag of CeCe hearing her teacher use the bathroom was utterly disgusting. The creators of the show really should've picked one of the premises and stuck to it, because the show as is can't possibly support both.

The characters are really dull and uninteresting, yet the more I spend time with them, the more I dislike them. Starting with our leading lady, CeCe is an anxious girl who's hearing impairment make her a bit awkward. Rather than grow more confident and fun, she becomes more selfish and bratty by refusing to learn sign language, making false assumptions about Ginny and having a crush on a dude she just met. Her Mom, Babarah, appears caring and kind, but she's more of a tool for CeCe's development rather than an actual character with her own personality. Don't expect any of the other characters to be anything being dull and unlikable, because that's all the are. Laura had her dog bite CeCe, Ginny talks to CeCe like the latter's 3, Mike is the boy CeCe has a crush on, and Martha constantly avoids CeCe after an accident instead of talking things out like a normal kid. Everyone else is just defined by their one character trait or otherwise never had an impact on the plot to begin with.

The voice acting is downright terrible, save of course for the veteran actors. Man do I feel bad for these kids because the material they were given didn't do their talents justice. Lexi Finigan sounds very soft spoken as CeCe, which isn't bad except when CeCe is supposed to have more than one emotion. Quinn Copeland sounds underwhelmed as Martha, who's supposed to be more lively and fun. Sabrina Glow sounded like she never rehearsed her lines as Ginny. Boy-Yo Korodan recorded his lines too late to convincingly sound like a boy in the 4th Grade. Cassie Glow just sounded bored as Laura, who's supposed to be more nasty. The original author of El Deafo, CeCe Bell, provides narration for the show, and she just explains everything rather than let the show speak for itself. The veteran actors, Pamala Adlon, Jane Lynch, Clancy Brown, and Tara Strong all did a pretty good job with the material they were given.

Visually, the animation is just lifeless and hallow. Lighthouse Studios (who provided animation for The Cuphead Show) worked on the animation for this show and it didn't come out right. The character designs have this uncanny valley appearance were they come close to looking human but with long ears, a Y shaped nose with a pink 1/3rd of a circle on it and peach like fur. They're too much like humans to be anthropomorphic rabbits, but don't have enough rabbit like features either. I also hate CeCe's design as she has a line below her head that separates the head from the body. Now instead of looking like an uncanny humanoid bunny creature, she looks like she's a plastic doll. The clothes on the character don't do much to make them stand out and their hair styles mostly look like wigs. The actual character animation is very stiff, with characters lacking an eb and flow in their movement. The town they live in is also pretty empty woth not enough people to make it feel lived in.

The last thing I want to mention is how this show uses hearing aids to filter the dialogue. I understand the reasoning behind this as it shows what the world sounds like from a deaf person's point of view. But hears the thing: we, the audience, would already get the gist of it from the first time they do it. By doing constantly, it becomes irritating to listen. It also makes it hard to understand what other characters are saying, especially if it's relevant to the plot.

I wish I could say I wasn't surprised, but this actually turned out worst than I thought it would. El Deafo is an awful cartoon with terrible writing, dull and unlikable characters, lifeless animation and irritating sound quality. As much as I wanted to support CeCe Bell for telling her personal story as a deaf person, I can't honestly say this was a well made show. If you're looking for a good story about a deaf person, watch A Silent Voice. I've heard nothing but praise about that film, so there's a good chance you'll like that more than El Deafo -.-