Are you fluent in ASL? There are some job opportunities...

This week, I wasn't in the mood for my weekly ASL lessons. The good thing about online courses... you can skip classes all you want, heh. I wish I could have done that when I was at the university. Sigh. :)

So I was "spinning the bottle" at Google... wondering what web site with the keyword "ASL" (American Sign Language) would turn out.

This is how I arrived at Deaf Casting . com .

My first thought: Gee whiz, why not ?!? They have to recruit deaf actors, somewhere, no?

How about deaf movies?

How about English-speaking "mainstream" movies with deaf actors? In real life, there are plenty of deaf and hard of hearing people who are happily co-habitating with the hearing population... so why they wouldn't appear in mainstream movies as well?

As you know, I'm multilingual. I'm a native French speaker. I pretend to speak English (heh heh). I know some Italian, some German, some Spanish. Now, I'm learning Sign Language.

It has irked me a few times to see in American movies some people speaking in "fake French" (say, a waiter, err... "garçon" at a supposedly French restaurant). The idea is that it would sound French... to English speakers. They don't give a hoot that there are also people who are fluent in French watching this movie, and what the guy has uttered is just gibberish.

So why hiring hearing actors who would fake that they're deaf? A language is a language is a language, and American Sign Language is a language, just like French, English, German, and so forth.

I'll be offended, just like my fellow deaf and hard of hearing brothers who see actors "faking" that they are deaf. Don't sign in gibberish...

Respect our language, respect our culture.

I think this is also why Deaf Casting is there.

It goes without saying that they provide job opportunities to deaf and hard of hearing people.

Wow...

At the time I'm writing these lines, there's a movie by the name of "Sweet nothing in my ear"... (bravo for the great title!), a movie for the television, and you see big names like... CBS. No less. They're looking for deaf actors, fluent in ASL...

Also there were some auditions in Seattle, for a 3-month movie shoot... to be done in Toronto and Montréal. Sigh... three lovely cities I know quite well. :) Being fluent in ASL is also de rigueur...

Sometimes, I'm wondering...

I imagine that I can be classified as a hard of hearing person. :) However, never in my life I thought that learning a new language would become _this_ useful. :)

I would also bet that many deaf and hard of hearing persons have never considered an acting career... nor that in their wildest dreams, ASL would be the ticket to do so.

I support organizations like Deaf Casting and the least I can do is to write about them, here.

I suspect that there's no deaf Tom Hanks nor deaf Helen Mirren celebrities. I figure that you earn just modest amount of money. :)

However, if you know a deaf of hard of hearing friend, maybe they haven't thought that they could consider acting... nor even thought that the knowledge of ASL would open such big doors... so feel free to pass these infos. Who knows? A great movie star is born, thanks to you. :)

Cheers!

-E