Audism Movie Analysis

According to Webster’s dictionary, “Audism is discrimination or prejudice against individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing,” but the idea of audism goes far beyond this definition. Audism also involves the notion that someone feels superior on their ability to hear. Furthermore, they believer that not being able to hear leads to a futile and miserable life. Thus, the belief that a hearing person is superior to a deaf person, and that a deaf person’s life is a miserable one leads to a negative stigma toward those unable to hear.
My reaction to viewing the movie Audism was not one of surprise, because in America, and as demonstrated in the interviews in the movie from around the world, people are afraid of what they don’t understand and of

This act ensures that students with disabilities are provided with free and appropriate education. However, I believe that having interpreters in the classroom benefits deaf students. Although the issue must be dealt with sensitively, it is best to that the student have an interpreter, so that the teacher can gage whether the student understands the lesson or not. This is perhaps the only way the deaf student can assuredly grow academically. Also, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ensures the fair and proper treatment of disabled people in the workplace, but more needs to be done in the arena. Deaf workers aren’t taken into consideration when the tools they need to complete a task aren’t supplied, which makes their jobs difficult if not impossible to

For instance, in the movie, one deaf man’s uncle took him to a Zulu medicine man to be cured. When the nephew chuckled he was pinched and reprimanded, and when the procedure didn’t work, the uncle blamed the child and told him that the reason the treatment didn’t work was his fault because he laughed. This obviously scared the child for life, because he is now a man and is recounting the story with sadness. Some parents don’t accept the deafness of their children and treat them like they need to be fixed. Redundant ear surgeries, chemicals aimed at the ear via the nasal cavity, and cumbersome hearing aids that were bothersome to the child are some of the futile attempts to fix deaf children. Still, the idea was formed to rid the human population of deaf people by sterilizing them, which is founded in eugenics.
Eugenics is the study or belief that a way to improve the quality of the human population is by discouraging reproduction of people who have genetic defects. Thus, a person presumed to have genetic defects is discouraged to reproduce, and someone without genetic defects would be encouraged to reproduce. The story in the movie relating how one deaf couple had a still-born baby. After the infant was delivered the doctor sterilized the woman without her consent. This was a way to rid the human population of an undesirable trait-