Last night I turned on my TV to watch some more of Buffy Season Five en Francais(which by the way is really bolstering my confidence - I can now say "He's not a little ball of sunshine"). But I never turned on the DVD because what was on MTV was so much better.
Whoa. Did I just say that? I mean, I can admit I am addicted to MTV and VH1, but I don't usually defend the programming as any more than sleaze TV that sometimes makes a commentary on the weaker points of our society. While I argue that it has its merits, I never thought a show on either channel would be so good that it would delay me from turning on BtVS. But then I saw True Life: I'm deaf.
The show profiled two people who were born deaf. Amanda, 21, was born deaf but uses a hearing aid to listen to people's voices. She doesn't use sign language because she prefers to read lips, and she speaks. When she was young her mom enrolled her in a dance class and she was able to listen to the vibration of the music to pick up rhythm.
Chris is a high-school student who was also born deaf. He, unlike Amanda, relies on sign language to communicate because he doesn't know how his voice sounds. His girlfriend is learning sign language but they mostly communicate with written notes.
The episode documents life-changing events for both people. Chris gets a cochlear implant in his head, which means that he is able to hear for the first time in his life. He can hear his mother's voice, his father play the guitar, the sound of leaves beneath his feet, all of the chaotic sounds of a day in high school, and the way it sounds when his girlfriend says his name. Although it will take a few years for Chris to fully understand spoken language, he is happy to be able to hear.
Amanda tries out for a dance squad in Baltimore with two of her close friends. She is an incredible dancer and she is beautiful, but she doesn't make the cut. The update at the end of the episode tells us that she makes the next squad she tries out for.
Of course it is amazing that medical technology can make a deaf person hear, and that Amanda is a fantastic dancer though she can't hear the music, and that Chris and his girlfriend sustain a healthy relationship without verbal communication, but what impressed me most was the candor that Chris and Amanda have. The episode was wraught with moments of extreme vulnerability that these people let cameras be privy to: when Chris stands in front of his bathroom mirror and tries to form words when he has no idea how he sounds; when Amanda brings a ringing cell phone to her ear and then talks about how much it sucks to not be able to talk on the telephone; how she is so nervous that no one will count 5,6,7,8... before the routine and she will miss her first step of the audition. During these moments, I couldn't help feeling like a voyeur in their lives.
It is rare that a program on the TV stations I watch inspires me to make the most out of my life, but this one certainly did.
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