Sound and Fury is a featured film documentary regarding the controversy around Cochlear Implants. The film focuses on two related families that have many deaf and hearing members.
The deaf family, both parents and all three children, were debating whether or not to get the implants for their oldest daughter (age 4). The hearing family, both parents hearing and one twin hearing and the other twin deaf, is facing their family and community when they decide to get implants for their 11 month old.
The deaf family looked up tons of information about the implants and visited other families who decided to get the implants. However, they were discouraged to find that children with implants had no connection to Deaf Culture. The schools that implant children attend focus on oral learning methods and when their deaf daughter visited these schools, she had no way of communicating with the other children. Their research helped them decide that cochlear implants were not right for their daughter or their family.
The hearing family faced a set of deaf parents who were troubled by their decision to get implants. The hearing family is closely involved in the Deaf community, and their decision felt like a betrayal to members of the community. While they want what is best for their son, it was difficult choice and one that left them with conflict within their family and the Deaf community.
Sound and Fury incorporated several issues. One of the main ones was the fear of the deaf community losing their "deafness." Deaf people seemed to be worried that children with implants would move toward the hearing world and leave the Deaf world behind. However, it appeared that most of the children getting implants belong to hearing families; hearing families have little or no connection to the Deaf world. And while deaf people say that hearing parents are stealing a rich culture from their child by getting implants, hearing parents fear their children will be left out of their culture.
The strongest argument I heard in both cases was the attempt to give children the best of both worlds. I believe that deaf parents can give their children implants and still offer them the rich culture of the Deaf. There was one brief example of a deaf family who did this: their daughter had implants and still went to a deaf school and had mostly deaf friends. Her speech was not as clear as students in an oral school, but she was still able to communicate with her hearing friends. I believe that hearing parents should not be scorned because they chose implants for their child. While it may appear to be taking a child away from the deaf culture, by keeping the child deaf, it is removing the child from their culture.
The hearing people in the movie kept talking about how Deaf culture is changing and how implants are part of that change. I'm not sure that I agree. If implants are used as an automatic reaction of hearing parents with deaf children, then nothing in changing in the community. It is simply the hearing worlds way of ignoring deafness. Yet, if more deaf parents decide to get implants for their children, then a change will start to take place, as the children will hopefully be raised in both worlds. However, that is not yet the case.
The argument of deafness being a disability was brought up several times by hearing people; this view of deafness makes this a complicated topic. I had an ASL teacher once tell me that there is only a communication barrier between hearing people and deaf people. There is no disability because they are still able to do things that a hearing person can do. The only thing different is the language. But until the hearing community recognizes this, implants will continue to be a highly debated topic.
written on October 15, 2002; modified on October 15, 2002.