Barbara DiGi of the "Deaf Progressivism" wrote the real splendid letter to the CBS-TV in response to the airing of the "Cold Cases" last night on the network television. Her "open letter" to the CBS-TV could be seen on Misha Zena' blog.
My first reason is to get into the DeafRead blogosphere few years ago is to mobilize all of you, deaf readers, viewers, bloggers and vloggers to spill our concerns and expressions over the DeafRead black kettle to the general society to educate and mobilize the millions and millions of hearing people what and who we, deaf people are all about. We must not let the society at large to define and pigeonhole us, deaf people.
The best way is to pressure the CBS-TV and the producers of the "Cold Case" television programming by writing countless open letters to various publications, ex. local and regional and statewide newspapers, national and international magazines to get the formal apology and disclaimer and the follow-up reactions from the deaf community on various CBS newsmagazine tv shows and entertainment shows.
We must get together as the whole deaf community to fight off the "inaccurate/unfair" portrayal of deaf people in the world of entertainment and newsreportings. Or we will dearly pay the price for being socially and culturally passive without making any corrections or challenge their societal perspective of our own dear community.
Some deaf people like Mike McConnell, probably will scoff at the significance of fair and accurate portrayal of deaf people on the tv shows and newsreportings. Many social and cultural historians and researchers will tell you differently what really happened in the past societal occurrences/incidents.
From my past sociological research for the Gally sociology class, the sociology professor did scoff at me for doing the research on this very topic. He became mesmerized later with the reading of several books after I researched on the portrayal of African Americans from Hollywood films and tv shows over 100 years. The images of African Americans came out unfavorably portrayed and often twisted from the "Birth of the Nation" to "Pinky" films to "Andy and Amos" tv shows. The professor told me "I really did not realize about those things occurred", ex. proven racial and ethnic hate crimes against particular and targeted minorities.
The past statistics of racial hate crimes against African Americans by the white America got skyrocketed almost 70 percent after the screening of "The Birth of a Nation" - endless lynchings, widespread discrimination, societal prejudices and other things.
Vito Russo, author of "The Celluloid Closet" nonfiction book and producer of the "very same title" powerful film documentary, done the years of stealth researching on the Hollywood portrayal of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) individuals on the celluloid images. He had to trick the Hollywood film suppliers and studios to send in their films or will never get a chance of getting the hands on endless films which often portrayed the so-called social deviance and psychologically abnormal minority in such questionable and unfavorable manners. The GLBTs ended up portrayed as scheming and twisted and pathetically degenerate creatures, instead of balanced and realistic and fair portrayal of sexual, cultural and linguistic minority (GLBTs). "Cruising" 1980 film with Al Pacino was one of the fine example of unfair depiction of gay males in the world of S&M.
The non-challenged images of African Americans and GLBTs in the world of entertainment from the 1890s to 1980s, left those minorities the hefty price from leading the decent, progressive and successful living in the United States. Their rights to the equal society had been endlessly denied from gainful employment to legal protection(s). Such misconceptions and irrational fears about any minorities led to the systematic discrimination and prejudices on the long-term hauls .
Please write the open letters to your local, regional and national publications to express your concerns about the CBS-TVs "Cold Case". We ought not to engage in the call for any kind of censorship and just engage in constructive dialogues for future "balanced" portrayal of deaf people. We ever have to forward our deaf blogs and vlogs to the movers and shakers of the entertainment world and the hearing bloggers to urge the show business people to take the deep insights how they portray us, deaf people on the silver screen and television shows.
No questions about Hollywood's true love for getting the hands on the social deviance of any groups and make money off the human misery for the purpose of entertainment. We really could make the difference in societal portrayal of deaf people within all of us. How sad!
Hopefully will see Barbara DiGi's open letter to the CBS-TV appears on the next week's "Variety" magazine, a respectable show business.
More information on Vito Russo's "The Celluloid Closet" could be found on http://en.wikipediaorg/wiki/TheCelluloid Closet or type 'The Celluloid Closet". I could not recall the titles of several nonfiction books on the Hollywood portrayal of African Americans.
Robert L. Mason
RLMDEAF blog
rlmdeaf@hotmail.com
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