deaf jam

The film Deaf Jam shows the coherence of death culture. One part of the film that I felt was particularly powerful was when the deaf girl felt the need to speak at the end of the performance in order to show people that deaf individuals can speak. In this situation, she was highlighting a stereotype held by the public and using her art to transform the notion of deaf individuals. In addition, by watching a movie that almost completely lacked spoken dialogue, I feel that I enhanced my understanding of death culture and enhanced my ability to appreciate other aspects of sign language such as the way that body language helps add additional meaning to the signed words. This artistic element of limiting spoken dialogue in the movie highlighted the idea of death-gain by showing the richness of the deaf culture specifically the culture created by the students. Death culture enhances human and language diversity. For example, these individuals have enhanced capabilities visuospatial abilities that can be used to communicate information about their culture as seen when Aneta uses these skills to convey the meaning of her poems during the slam competitions. However, there was one additional element that I would have liked to see the movie elaborate on. This element was the idea that Aneta was born to an entirely deaf family while her peers did not grow up in an all deaf home environment. I am curious how their varying experiences shape their relationship to deaf culture and how they value themselves as members of the deaf community.