A Quiet Place – A Film, Critique
McCullough
course, seeing the father’s love for his daughter is touching, but it comes at the expense of
emphasizing the need to “cure” Deaf people.
It is important to acknowledge the fact that the Deaf girl’s parents’ ASL also reflects their
love for her through ensuring she acquires full language access. This, however, is not a point that
is highlighted or used to evoke warm feelings from viewers like the cochlear implants succeed in
doing. It is especially ironic, as language acquisition is a guarantee with ASL, and not so with
cochlear implants.
6. Cochlear implants are instant lifesavers.
The movie implies cochlear implants save lives, whether through making Deaf people hear
or acting as heroic destroyers of the creatures that are terrorizing the world. This romanticizes the
idea of cochlear implants, framing them as quick, miraculous solutions to the perceived problem
of being Deaf and the actual (in the movie) problem of fending off deadly creatures.
The reality is the opposite. Cochlear implants do not function as artificial ears that provide
perfect hearing ability. They do not work like glasses do for most people who wear them. Deaf
people who receive cochlear implants must endure long hours of auditory-verbal therapy (AVT)
and practice constantly before a minimal percentage finally benefit from them (Humphries et al.,
2012; also see Snoddon, 2008 for the push of AVT in current society).
It is hard not to wonder why cochlear implants are portrayed in such a super-heroic way in
this movie. The cochlear implant industry earns a great deal of money by exploiting hearing
people’s, especially parents’, fears and ignorance about Deaf people. While the implants may work
for some people, they most definitely do not work for many others. This movie, however, frames
them otherwise.
The irony is that ASL is actually a valuable tool for early language acquisition, acting as a
lifesaver for many Deaf individuals.
Now that you know these not-so-great messages in A Quiet Place, you may not think they are
major issues. However, they do shape what hearing people think of Deaf people. Some viewers
may go on to have Deaf babies in the future. When they find out their baby is Deaf, their negative
reactions, thoughts, and feelings may be subconsciously influenced by this movie. Having a Deaf
baby does not have to be as terrifying, but unfortunately movies like A Quiet Place perpetuate this
nightmare. Remembering this movie and its misleading messages, parents may react out of fear
and do everything to make their child not Deaf, such as opting for cochlear implants and no ASL.
This is never the best option for their Deaf child though, since every Deaf baby should be provided
full access to ASL, a visual-gestural language that comes naturally to Deaf people.
Yes, we can be happy that A Quiet Place cast a Deaf talent and made ASL visible on the
big screen. At the same time, we need to consider the other messages, both subtle and loud, that
the movie sends about Deaf people.
Addendum: Many people who reacted to my post, mentioned how ironic it is that while the
movie captioned all conversations in ASL for non-signers, it did not caption any conversations in
spoken English for Deaf individuals. I thought this is another point worth considering.
References
Bay, M., Form, A., Fuller, B. (Producers), & Krasinski, J. (Director). (2018). A Quiet Place
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