unicornempire:seananmcguire:ayalaatreides:misspider:gayjamesmcgraw:The Shape of Water (2017) dir. Gu
unicornempire:seananmcguire:ayalaatreides:misspider:gayjamesmcgraw:The Shape of Water (2017) dir. Guillermo del ToroThe literally silent women protagonist leaves a super bad taste in my mouth. She’s deaf and speaks with sign language, she’s not a silent woman. Like, can we agree that deaf representation in media is important? Can we agree that ASL representation in media is important? This is an adult-oriented romance/sci-fi movie where the female lead is a deaf woman. How can you act like this isn’t significant? The last gif has a deaf woman in the 60s standing up to an aggressive man and telling him to go fuck himself. This movie is doing something that has probably never been done before. But hey, she can’t talk “normally” like a hearing woman and that’s bad, so go off I guess.She’s not Deaf; she’s unable to speak, for reasons that have yet to be disclosed, but are probably a form of mutism. She’s still using ASL to communicate, and that is still super important, but it’s a different form of representation, one that is important and I trust the subject matter to treat well.Also there’s a big difference between a ‘silent’ woman and a woman who simply is not making noises to communicate things; I mean, Ariel is silent through a large chunk of the Little Mermaid, but would you say she’s not communicating through that part of the story? No! and she doesn’t know ASL, which IS a language- but she still ‘communicates’ and expresses thoughts, feelings and opinions. A ‘silent woman’ is a woman who even the writer and director forget and leave in the background. It’s a world of difference. I’m really excited to watch this movie, and I’m even more excited knowing that the lead is mute because I’m always stoked to see more diverse representation in our media, it’s invaluable! -- source link