Thursday, October 27, 2011

MTVU at Gallaudet - the next brouhaha..ha ha?

It was an interesting beginning episode of the new MTVU tv reality series "Quiet Campus: Welcome to Gallaudet." Four Gallaudet University students introduced themselves in the show.  All of them came from mainstreamed schools. Two of them were strongly oral, a third one a late deafened student who lost her hearing while as a hearing child due to chemotheraphy who described herself as "deaf with a splash of hearing," and a fourth one described himself as a gay latino with "three strikes against him" (i.e. deaf, gay and latino). It was a nice video introduction and a way to show the world what Gallaudet University is like. Although there seems to be a bit of mild "brouhaha" going on with the complaint that the show was missing a "culturally Deaf ASL-using students be a part of the cast." Sure, why not. Although I'm not making a big deal out of it. Nor am I making a big deal of Taylor who described herself as "deaf with a splash of hearing" (i.e. hard of hearing). She's simply being with herself. I've no desire to make any kind of judgement against her or the cast based on their upbringing or what school they went to. Or how they describe themselves as. They are students of Gallaudet University and are representatives of that school and the Deaf community. Also, just because a deaf person went to a mainstreamed school does not necessarily mean they're not culturally deaf. A lot of that depends on their background and their primary means of communication among themselves.

Perhaps people should be asking the hard questions. Who did MTVU consult with at Gallaudet University about the selection process for their new reality show? Somebody inside at Gallaudet University administration had to know about the upcoming MTVU show beforehand before giving their approval. Was there any consultation at all? Were recommendations given on how to select the students? Who were involved? How were the cast members selected by MTVU? What were the criteria for the selection? And so on. Instead of targeting those four students who described themselves as mainstream students at one time.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Huh? I personally know them and 2 of them came from deaf schools. Perhaps the more accurate statement is that all of them have had *experienced* being mainstreamed. As far as I know, there's little controversy in the deaf world about the show (save for a few fringe vlogs that I may not be aware of).