ST:TNG Loud as a Whisper
Oct. 9th, 2010 01:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethThe Enterprise brings a deaf negotiator to mediate the end of a planetary civil war.
That's the Memory Alpha summary and that's basically the whole plot. The negotiator is deaf. We watch him be deaf. He has interpreters to do the speaking parts, we watch the Enterprise crew be all surprised and get the etiquette wrong and be corrected. Then the negotiator loses his interpreters and there's more plot made of that. It's all about 'He's deaf! Look! Still deaf now!' and there's a touching moment where he notices the blind guy on the bridge and they have a whole 'hey, we lack a sense and we're okay with that!' moment.
It's clunky, but honestly it's no more clunky than TNG has been about any kind of people stuff thus far, so I actually quite like it. They're trying. Even if you can see them trying, they're just as earnest about every other message of the week.
And I liked the ending. Instead of a tech fix everyone acts like they actually meant it when they said they'd rather be who they are, and has the same senses at the end as the start. Plus an actual clever thing where they use teaching sign language as the basis for opening communication between factions. Neat.
... I learned from Memory Alpha that was not the original ending. The original ending was the 'fixit' one I dreaded. But they'd hired a deaf guy who oddly enough had a much better idea. So two points of win there, hiring someone with a disability to play a character with a disability (which is far rarer than it should be), and listening to them. Adding up to a win of an ending. Thank you Howie Seago.
The remaining problem though is how it breaks down on the logic of the Universal Translator. We hear English. People from multiple worlds all speak English. And somehow this English has lip synch. So when we hear the deaf guy is lip reading, that sounds reasonable enough. Except logically everyone is speaking their own version and the UT is turning it into English. Since Enterprise spends a lot more time playing with the UT you think about such things more. So okay, the deaf guy can lip read... but in how many languages?
And if the UT is doing something holographic to lips (and don't even think about the level of complexity involved in such a thing) it should certainly be able to cope with a gestural language. Honestly, if Data can learn it from teh computer then the computer should be able to get together with the UT to translate it the usual way.
But no, because the Universal Translator is the invisible technology, so teh universe speaks English, can lip read, and can't learn sign.
*facepalm*
Also there was the moment when Picard grabbed the deaf guy's head to get him to look at him and hands to get him to stop signing. That's to get him to listen. But would you put your hand over someone's mouth to get him to listen? A respected negotiator?? As a way of calming him? And Picard isn't a very grabby person, it's not like it's a gesture he's used on anyone else. So it jarred because it seemed to be category: ways to treat disabled people, subcategory: power plays. Uncool.
On the whole though, allowing for the general clunk level of the series, I liked what they were trying to do with this one, even with the way being deaf or blind verges on a superpower in the middle, or with the focus on 'listen' for communicate, because the ending clarified that in a deaf accepting way. People just get on with things, don't try and fit the 'normal', make it work anyway. Is win.
That's the Memory Alpha summary and that's basically the whole plot. The negotiator is deaf. We watch him be deaf. He has interpreters to do the speaking parts, we watch the Enterprise crew be all surprised and get the etiquette wrong and be corrected. Then the negotiator loses his interpreters and there's more plot made of that. It's all about 'He's deaf! Look! Still deaf now!' and there's a touching moment where he notices the blind guy on the bridge and they have a whole 'hey, we lack a sense and we're okay with that!' moment.
It's clunky, but honestly it's no more clunky than TNG has been about any kind of people stuff thus far, so I actually quite like it. They're trying. Even if you can see them trying, they're just as earnest about every other message of the week.
And I liked the ending. Instead of a tech fix everyone acts like they actually meant it when they said they'd rather be who they are, and has the same senses at the end as the start. Plus an actual clever thing where they use teaching sign language as the basis for opening communication between factions. Neat.
... I learned from Memory Alpha that was not the original ending. The original ending was the 'fixit' one I dreaded. But they'd hired a deaf guy who oddly enough had a much better idea. So two points of win there, hiring someone with a disability to play a character with a disability (which is far rarer than it should be), and listening to them. Adding up to a win of an ending. Thank you Howie Seago.
The remaining problem though is how it breaks down on the logic of the Universal Translator. We hear English. People from multiple worlds all speak English. And somehow this English has lip synch. So when we hear the deaf guy is lip reading, that sounds reasonable enough. Except logically everyone is speaking their own version and the UT is turning it into English. Since Enterprise spends a lot more time playing with the UT you think about such things more. So okay, the deaf guy can lip read... but in how many languages?
And if the UT is doing something holographic to lips (and don't even think about the level of complexity involved in such a thing) it should certainly be able to cope with a gestural language. Honestly, if Data can learn it from teh computer then the computer should be able to get together with the UT to translate it the usual way.
But no, because the Universal Translator is the invisible technology, so teh universe speaks English, can lip read, and can't learn sign.
*facepalm*
Also there was the moment when Picard grabbed the deaf guy's head to get him to look at him and hands to get him to stop signing. That's to get him to listen. But would you put your hand over someone's mouth to get him to listen? A respected negotiator?? As a way of calming him? And Picard isn't a very grabby person, it's not like it's a gesture he's used on anyone else. So it jarred because it seemed to be category: ways to treat disabled people, subcategory: power plays. Uncool.
On the whole though, allowing for the general clunk level of the series, I liked what they were trying to do with this one, even with the way being deaf or blind verges on a superpower in the middle, or with the focus on 'listen' for communicate, because the ending clarified that in a deaf accepting way. People just get on with things, don't try and fit the 'normal', make it work anyway. Is win.