Echo (Disney +) (2023)

ht tps://w ww.you tube.c om/watch?v=AFCz53YKKx8

Echo "Chafa"

Echo "Lowak"

Echo "Tuklo"

Echo "Taloa"

Echo "Maya"

OK, haven't watched anything beyond episode 2 yet, I"ll finish it Friday. I'll not be spoilers (unless you haven't yet seen Daredevil or Hawkeye and if that's the case, stop reading here)

However, I'm going to speak out a bit about the way d/Deafness is portrayed here since I have both a familial and professional stake in it. This is only my observation and my opinion and is no way indicative of anyone else in the d/Deaf communities including my son. Take everything I say with a grain of salt.

That being said:

Maya, is deaf (little "d" meaning clinical diagnosis, Capital "D" meaning culturally Deaf) and far better off than what is typical in most deaf-child-in-hearing-families so this already skews a little fanciful (which is fine, this is superheroes after all). The most recent statistics show that 90% of all deaf children are born into hearing families (yes, that is the language we use). Less than 7% of those families will bother learning sign language and of that percent an overwhelming majority (close to 70-90%) will only learn a few simple basic pleasantries and then stop short of the actual language. It is entirely too typical for deaf children to grow up with no language access in their own homes with their own families.

Maya, clearly falls into the 1% of the 1% of families in that everyone she knows has at least a little bit of signing capability. They aren't all fluent, but they all try. She even has "home signs" (Signs that aren't actually part of the language but are used and understood within her home community, think of "get me the dillywhacker thingy" and another person in your house knowing exactly what you meant) and even with her absence, everyone retained their skill when she finally returned home. This is not typical, and completely unexpected (how much Spanish/French/latin do you recall from high school? not enough to be fully conversational probably).

Then she goes off to NYC and falls in with Kingpin.

Matt, you aren't entirely wrong in saying if Kingpin cared for her he would learn sign. But you aren't entirely right either. The fact that he keeps an interpreter on staff to be able to communicate with her at his discretion is miles ahead and progressive compared to what happens for most d/Deaf people in their daily lives. Most employers do not keep interpreters on hand nor do they even know how to go about requesting one when it is actually needed for "important" conversations (Honestly, this is a major issue with how the ADA is applied but that is a whole other conversation). The fact that he is willing to bring another person into his circle to have "equal and appropriate" conversations with her is amazing and shows a great deal of care.

All that being said, I have some issues with how Sign Language is portrayed in this show. Most shows are awful at showing singing. They move the camera too much, they are positioned off to the side, the cut back and forth between characters in the middle of a sentence, etc. This show has that too a degree but by far they are one of the best of keeping signers clear and on screen until they are done "speaking". However, this isn't ASL (American Sign Language). There is a good deal of asl there, but there is something else as well.

Fluency is surprisingly well represented for hearing people using sign. It is often very stilted and stuttered and uncertain unless someone uses it everyday as their primary language so I applaud the "realness" of that for the supporting characters. However, the presentation of sign language here seems to be very word for word English and that is absolutely not ASL. ASL has its own grammar, its own vocabulary, its own rules and structure. Sometimes they follow along, sometimes they throw it all out the window, and it isn't consistent.

I find this very odd since the actor playing Maya is actually Deaf. At some point I would think they would have had her consult on the best way to use sign or translate a particular part of the script. I wasn't involved in any capacity, so I can't say for certain, and I may be completely wrong, but it feels like there was more concern in getting her Tribe correct and less thought into portraying her deafness correctly. I wonder if they were trying to incorporate both ASL and Indigenous Tribal signs as one language which might be entirely accurate to Maya's upbringing, but if so, make that known somewhere.

using the trick of killing the sound during key sequences to help the audience focus on her perception is nice, but not used often enough or with enough care to really make it be felt as anything other than a "cool moment".

I want to like this show. I want to see more attempts at showing a more varied and real world in the genre shows I enjoy. However, this feels like her deafness is dressing for the character and not actually part of the character which makes the whole thing feel a bit too imagined (again, I get that this is superhero stuff and its all imagined, but still, meet me at lest half way).

As for the show itself outside of the above rant, I like it so far, but I'm waiting for something to actually happen that matters to anyone for any reason.  Too much of the first episode was recapping Hawkeye and gave the show a falter before it got running.

Posted by: @bnjmnrlyr

↑

OK, haven't watched anything beyond episode 2 yet, I"ll finish it Friday. I'll not be spoilers (unless you haven't yet seen Daredevil or Hawkeye and if that's the case, stop reading here)

However, I'm going to speak out a bit about the way d/Deafness is portrayed here since I have both a familial and professional stake in it. This is only my observation and my opinion and is no way indicative of anyone else in the d/Deaf communities including my son. Take everything I say with a grain of salt.

That being said:

Maya, is deaf (little "d" meaning clinical diagnosis, Capital "D" meaning culturally Deaf) and far better off than what is typical in most deaf-child-in-hearing-families so this already skews a little fanciful (which is fine, this is superheroes after all). The most recent statistics show that 90% of all deaf children are born into hearing families (yes, that is the language we use). Less than 7% of those families will bother learning sign language and of that percent an overwhelming majority (close to 70-90%) will only learn a few simple basic pleasantries and then stop short of the actual language. It is entirely too typical for deaf children to grow up with no language access in their own homes with their own families.

Maya, clearly falls into the 1% of the 1% of families in that everyone she knows has at least a little bit of signing capability. They aren't all fluent, but they all try. She even has "home signs" (Signs that aren't actually part of the language but are used and understood within her home community, think of "get me the dillywhacker thingy" and another person in your house knowing exactly what you meant) and even with her absence, everyone retained their skill when she finally returned home. This is not typical, and completely unexpected (how much Spanish/French/latin do you recall from high school? not enough to be fully conversational probably).

Then she goes off to NYC and falls in with Kingpin.

Matt, you aren't entirely wrong in saying if Kingpin cared for her he would learn sign. But you aren't entirely right either. The fact that he keeps an interpreter on staff to be able to communicate with her at his discretion is miles ahead and progressive compared to what happens for most d/Deaf people in their daily lives. Most employers do not keep interpreters on hand nor do they even know how to go about requesting one when it is actually needed for "important" conversations (Honestly, this is a major issue with how the ADA is applied but that is a whole other conversation). The fact that he is willing to bring another person into his circle to have "equal and appropriate" conversations with her is amazing and shows a great deal of care.

All that being said, I have some issues with how Sign Language is portrayed in this show. Most shows are awful at showing singing. They move the camera too much, they are positioned off to the side, the cut back and forth between characters in the middle of a sentence, etc. This show has that too a degree but by far they are one of the best of keeping signers clear and on screen until they are done "speaking". However, this isn't ASL (American Sign Language). There is a good deal of asl there, but there is something else as well.

Fluency is surprisingly well represented for hearing people using sign. It is often very stilted and stuttered and uncertain unless someone uses it everyday as their primary language so I applaud the "realness" of that for the supporting characters. However, the presentation of sign language here seems to be very word for word English and that is absolutely not ASL. ASL has its own grammar, its own vocabulary, its own rules and structure. Sometimes they follow along, sometimes they throw it all out the window, and it isn't consistent.

I find this very odd since the actor playing Maya is actually Deaf. At some point I would think they would have had her consult on the best way to use sign or translate a particular part of the script. I wasn't involved in any capacity, so I can't say for certain, and I may be completely wrong, but it feels like there was more concern in getting her Tribe correct and less thought into portraying her deafness correctly. I wonder if they were trying to incorporate both ASL and Indigenous Tribal signs as one language which might be entirely accurate to Maya's upbringing, but if so, make that known somewhere.

using the trick of killing the sound during key sequences to help the audience focus on her perception is nice, but not used often enough or with enough care to really make it be felt as anything other than a "cool moment".

 

I want to like this show. I want to see more attempts at showing a more varied and real world in the genre shows I enjoy. However, this feels like her deafness is dressing for the character and not actually part of the character which makes the whole thing feel a bit too imagined (again, I get that this is superhero stuff and its all imagined, but still, meet me at lest half way).

 

As for the show itself outside of the above rant, I like it so far, but I'm waiting for something to actually happen that matters to anyone for any reason.  Too much of the first episode was recapping Hawkeye and gave the show a falter before it got running.