By Alana Aninipot
Television and The Deaf
Television gained mainstream popularity in the 1950s. Almost every American
household had become enamored with the small box broadcasting videos and sounds.
However, a significant part of the population was not able to fully enjoy this
new wonder, the Deaf. Until the 1970s, when television companies began putting
the needs of the Deaf and hard of hearing into consideration.
At this time, the National Bureau of Standards began experimenting with
technology for captioning; In 1971, the first "National Conference on Television
for the Hearing Impaired" was held and two new closed captioning programs, which
only worked when specifically set up for Deaf and hard of hearing at-home
televisions were first shown (NCI*). A year later, while closed captioning was
still being worked on, open captions were making an appearance on television. In
1972, the program "The French Chef" was broadcasted on PBS became the first show
made accessible to the Deaf. Soon after in 1973, an ABC-TV newscast was
rebroadcasted daily with captions as a way to make the televised news more
accessible (NCI*).
A decade later, closed captioning programs were living in Deaf households across
the country and working as they should. With this new bout of access to
television, hearing television producer Sheldon Altfeld decided that the Deaf
should be seen on this nationwide platform. After working with NBC in 1979 in
making a special on Deaf entertainment called "SIGN OF OUR TIMES" and recording
40 hours of teaching ASL programming (Altfeld, 2016), Altfeld and his team
(composed of members of the Deaf community) decided to create the first sign
language based cable television channel. The channel named The Silent Network
began officially in 1981 broadcasting sign language programming to about 2
million homes and expanded to 14 million homes about 9 years later in 1990 (Altfeld,
2016). Also at that time, Altfeld made an executive decision to sell the network
and the ASL programming, essentially, ended on the channel.
Although The Silent Network had ended, many talented members of the Deaf
community had become more well known. Today, the Deaf are being represented on
television more, notably on the ABC Family drama series Switched at Birth. The
series follows two teenage girls who were accidentally switched in the hospital
and become great friends in an unlikely way. Daphne, one of the girls, is Deaf
and attends a fiction school for the Deaf where many other Deaf and hard of
hearing characters are introduced (Lacob, 2013). The show brings to light
historic Deaf events, such as the Deaf President Now protest at Gallaudet
University, and other topics members of the Deaf community experience within its
plot lines. Many of the shows actors are Deaf, including Katie Leclerc, Sean
Berdy and most notably Marlee Matlin, who is a well known Deaf actress.
Another Deaf actor who got his start on the show is Nyle DiMarco, and he has
expanded his outreach since then. DiMarco, after playing a small role on the
show, went on to become a contestant on the reality show America's Next Top
Model and eventually winning. He then went on to Dancing With The Stars, a
mainstream celebrity dance competition, where he also won, becoming the first
Deaf person to win in each show (GQ Bespoke, 2017). DiMarco is now an extremely
successful model and activist for the Deaf community. His participation and
winning of two "mainstream" reality competition shows have given representation
and exposure of Deaf people to at home television viewers, who may have not
known anything about the community before hand.
As we know today, shows are no longer limited to our televisions but now may be
streamed over the internet for easy and quick viewing. A new show will be
streaming soon through Showtime Now called "The Chances" is written by and
starring Deaf actors Shoshannah Stern and Josh Feldman. The series was first
premiered at the Sundance Film Festival 2017 as a series of shorts and was
immediately picked up by the streaming service after harboring great reviews (Prudom,
2017). The show is especially liked because it reportedly includes an "authentic
portrayal of the Deaf community" (Prudom, 2017) while the plot line does not
center around the characters' Deafness. With all of these new platforms and
expansions, hopefully the Deaf become more visible within the mainstream,
especially on television.
Works Cited:
History of Closed Captioning. National Captioning Institute Online. National
Captioning Institute. Retrieved 12, May 2017:
<http://www.ncicap.org/about-us/history-of-closed-captioning/>
*This source is from the official National Captioning Institute (NCI) website.
[Researcher's note: I emailed the company to find who wrote the "history" page
and when, but received no response. However, I feel the source is a reliable
account of the history as it is on the official site.* - A.A.]
Altfeld, Sheldon. (2016, Apr. 20). Deaf History - The Silent Network - A Deaf
Cable Channel. Verywell Online. Verywell. Retrieved 12, May. 2017: <https://www.verywell.com/silent-network-a-deaf-cable-channel-1046552>
Lacob, Jace. (2013, Feb, 28) ABC Family's 'Switched at Birth' ASL Episode
Recalls Gallaudet Protest. The Daily Beast Online. The Daily Beast. Retrieved
12, May. 2017: <http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/28/abc-family-s-switched-at-birth-asl-episode-recalls-gallaudet-protest>
GQ Bespoke (Sponsor Content) . (2017. Mar. 29) How This Model, Actor, Activist
is Breaking the Silence. GQ Magazine Online - Sponsored Content. GQ Magazine.
Retrieved 12, May. 2017: <http://www.gq.com/story/how-this-model-actor-activist-is-breaking-the-silence-sponsor-content
>
Prudom, Laura. (2017, Apr. 27).This Shouldn't be News, but There's Finally a
Show Created by and Starring Deaf Actors. Mashable Entertainment USA. Mashable.
Retrieved 12, May. 2017: <http://mashable.com/2017/04/27/the-chances-sundance-now-shoshannah-stern-josh-feldman/#sDaKRB6HJ5qD
>
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