Sound and Fury

The other night I watched Sound and Fury. This documentary is about one family struggling with technology. It's the story of two middle aged brothers, one completely deaf and one entirely hearing. The deaf brother has a deaf wife and three deaf children. The hearing brother is married to a hearing woman (whose parents are both deaf) and has two hearing children and one deaf child. The main story is about the deaf brother's oldest daughter wanting a cochlear implant and the effects that has on their entire extended family. Along with this story line is the hearing brother and his wife actively wanting their deaf son to have the implant.

In the end the deaf family decides not to let their daughter have the implant where the hearing family does. Then most of the hearing family starts saying that the deaf family, for not giving the daughter and implant, is abusive. They all live on Long Island until the deaf family hear of a place in Maryland where there's a large deaf community. All the family is pissed at each other. The end.

The thing that is brought up that I find most interesting is this:
The deaf brother and his wife were like 'dude we don't care about hearing music, we have our own language and our own culture. not hearing is so not an issue. this implant thing is going to make deaf people extinct.'

And that's weird, because it's true. I have no family members nor close friends that are deaf so I can't fully understand the emotional consequences of the technology which is the Cochlear Implant. But there is something wacky about it...though as the hearing mother said 'if you could give your blind child an operation that would let them see you would do it in a heartbeat, so how is deafness any different.'

Interesting movie.