**SPOILER ALERT**
Deaf Perspectives of “A Quiet Place”
Below you will find two reviews written from Deaf perspectives of “A Quiet Place” with John Krasinski and Emily Blunt. SPOILERS!!!
*MT&A neither endorses nor opposes “A Quiet Place.” The following reviews are from the individual authors’ points of view for the purpose of analyzing a movie that has impacted the Deaf Community.
Lee Jackson’s Perspective
Positive
- I love that the entire family (hearing or Deaf) used ASL. Can be a great advantage to communicate with one another in a very quiet place or the monsters will eat you!
- I wondered if all the other families that started bonfires around this family’s home were communicating in ASL as well. I thought at that moment it would be a dream come true if the others knew ASL.
- I loved that they used the lights to communicate as well. (For example, white meant they were okay while red meant emergency.)
- John and Emily’s characters (dad and mom) did a good job keeping Millie’s character (Regan) in the loop. I liked how they painted the floors and stairs where there were creaks.
- It was nice for Deaf viewers to be able to watch the movie instead of the caption box since most of it is silent anyway!
- You could see on the caption box the background noise, the father and son speaking near the waterfall, and the lyrics to Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon” fully subtitled. It was more expansive than simply the usual ♪♪♪ when music is playing.
- Hearing people were shown how the Deaf girl, Regan, saved the world with her cochlear implant (CI). At the same time, it was so sad that the dad wasn’t there to see it happen when it was his work to help his daughter hear again.
- I was somewhat impressed with John and Emily’s signing skills. It wasn’t beginner signing like most parents of a Deaf child. But at Millie’s age, I’d expect the parents’ skills to be smoother if they’d been learning since she was a baby. Some signs were hard to read; but knowing many parents do not sign, they did a pretty good job!
Negative
- Some of the signs were cropped out of the picture. The close ups made it hard to catch all that was said/signed.
- The message was that cochlear implants work for everyone. I don’t know if hearing people realize that CIs do work for some but not for others. And one part I found a bit confusing. How did Regan know that the toy rocket made noise when batteries were added, but she was unable to hear with her CI?
- I found it funny at the end that this movie used the CI or the Deaf girl to save the day! It wasn’t what I expected from this movie because this concept is uncommon. But for the writers to use the CI in this way communicates the idea that cochlear implants are always the way to go.
Alex Duly’s Perspective
I saw “A Quiet Place” at the AMC Theater in Chesterfield Mall. Starting off, the wonky Captiview device (for closed captioning) barely stayed in the cup holder, and it took multiple adjustments to make it fit correctly so I could see the captions. This brings me to my first thing I didn’t like about the movie.
Negative
- The majority of it was captioned. All the ASL was captioned. However, the sounds during the movie and when the hearing people in the movie spoke, there were no captions.
- Throughout the movie, you’re not sure who all is hearing and Deaf. You learn who is Deaf or hearing as the movie progresses, yet some people you don’t know until the very end. The hearing people are revealed at the end. It was such a shock that while I was busy reading the captions on the movie screen, I missed some of what was being said because I wasn’t expecting the actor/actress to speak suddenly.
- Again, my first big thing was that I wished that the entire movie had open captions.
- The second thing that I had an issue with was the monsters’ “weakness” was the Deaf girl’s hearing aid. Although it ended up saving them, I didn’t like that a hearing aid was even associated with a “weakness.”
Positive
- What I did like was that a Deaf actress was cast. She was great! I also loved that sign language was used throughout the movie. So much so that I wasn’t sure who all was Deaf and who wasn’t until the end. The use of ASL in the movie showed how functional sign language can be used in a variety of situations.
Overall, I enjoyed the movie! I loved that a Deaf actress was hired to play the role of the Deaf individual in the movie. I also loved that all the actors and actresses, regardless of their level of hearing, used and learned ASL for the movie.
Additional Resources:
‘A Quiet Place’ Falls Into A Tired Trope About Deafness
New Horror Film Highlight Various Aspects of Deaf Culture
The Value of Deaf Children Learning Sign Language
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