Recently, there was a controversy surrounding the upcoming TV series, 'Bionic Woman' featuring a deaf character being portrayed by a hearing actress. Even though an executive at NBC made a request to restore the deaf character's hearing, quite a number of people still viewed the pre-air pilot episode. They often show the early episodes to the executives and critics before they air it. Most of the times, the pre-air episodes aren't completely done. The F/X effects are often incomplete for budget reasons; they will re-edit it and re-shoot some scenes.
I can confirm that the deaf character is an incredibly weak signer. I cannot say I'm surprised. They resorted to one common cliché, which is mostly talking with a few badly formed signs. If they can carry on a conversation between each other, then why are they signing at all? The older sister of the deaf character barely signs but she does sign better than the deaf character. Yes, you read that right. The hearing sister is a better signer, but she's still not a good signer, but it was definitely more understandable than the deaf character's signing.
The reason why I am looking forward to 'Bionic Woman' is because the producer is also responsible for bringing us the 21st version of 'Battlestar Galactica’, which I am a big fan of. I am relieved they decided to drop the deaf character. Even before Ridor made a public complaint regarding the deaf character being portrayed by a hearing actress. I don't blame him, as I know for a fact that hearing actresses often deliver unconvincing performances in these roles. The hearing audience may not notice that, but we do notice it.
People may say it's all about acting. Yes, it is acting. However, the true mission accomplishment of acting is that you have to convince people that you are the character, not the impersonator. Not many actors and actresses are capable of doing this in so little time they are given to research the roles. I'm not against hearing actors and actresses playing deaf characters. It's just that they often don't deliver the performance. Deaf actors and actresses are often better at portraying deaf characters because they have a better understanding of deaf characteristic traits than the hearing people do most of the times.
I'm what you call a nitpicker when it comes to movies. When they use a serious tone in a movie where deaf characters are involved, they are often poorly portrayed. They often act like they are doomed, depressed, angry and more. We rarely to get to see a truly happy deaf character in a movie or a TV program. Well, Sue Thomas F.B. Eye is an exception but it was quite a cheesy show. I have met the actress, Deanna Bray. She was pretty friendly and easy to talk to.
I don't know why I didn't mention this before but there were already rumours circulating that the actress playing the deaf character was going to be replaced prior to the public complaint generated by Ridor. I cannot remember where I got the information; there are thousands of sources out there so I'm just going to say it. The test audience didn't find the deaf character to be interesting, the character was found to be one of the weak points. Some also were suspicious to the character because of the older sister being the Bionic Woman.
Some speculated that the deaf character's hearing might get restored later in the show, which was somewhere too predictive. TV producers these days don't like the word, predictive because they feel it does more harm than good to the show, which is somewhere true. Unless we get a word from an insider within NBC, we won't know what the real reason was if there is one. So far, we only know that the creative team didn't feel too happy with the character and the actress. So they changed it.
Yes, I openly prefer that deaf actors and actresses portray the deaf characters because I believe they can do justice to them in comparison to the hearing actors and actresses. That's just my preference.
I'm glad they decided to drop the deaf character because I didn't like the direction they were going in with the deaf character to start with. It was too obvious and too much of a cliché for my taste.
That's all I have to say for today. Have a good day.
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Someone reported the deaf sister has been scrapped and turned into a hearing character.
ReplyDeletealso Im a massive BSG fan too, and Katee Sackoff *Starbuck, is in the new Bionic Woman too :)
ReplyDeleteso is her sister in it at all now?? or is she still in it only hearing?? Im sad really that they dropped her, could they not just find a Deaf actress?? Hell Id do it!!!!
ReplyDeleteBanjo: I found your post through a Google search. Thank you for your insight. I'm a hearing actor with some experience in deaf theatre, and I keep hoping the industry will get a clue and give more of my deaf colleagues the recognition they deserve!
ReplyDeleteLette: As I think you already saw on my LiveJournal post, you're right. They are keeping the sister, but she will be a hearing character now. Some sources are saying the network asked them to make her hearing.
I'm disappointed they did that instead of casting a deaf actress, as they should have done in the first place. I'm also disappointed that they are replacing Mae Whitman with a different hearing actress. They are turning her into another cookie-cutter TV teenager and taking away anything that makes her different. :-(
It's really too bad they eliminated the deafness angle. That was a good connection to the original Bionic Woman. I don't know what bionic parts she is going to have now, but in the original series she had bionic ears!
ReplyDeleteI am also from a section of society who is very badly represented in Hollywood movies and on US TV. I am from a section of society who is normally shown to be either a cowardly, bumbling idiot or a cold calculating villain. Can you guess which section of society which I am part of? I’m English.
ReplyDeleteI have a theory that since the dawn of colour movies there has never been an English actor playing an English hero who wasn’t bumbling or up tight or whatever stereotype fitted at the time. If there ever is a heroic English person, they get an American to play them (this does not apply to Scottish or Welsh (not sure they have ever been in a Hollywood movie).
This leads me neatly on to the Bionic Woman. I accept your point about how unconvincing a non-deaf actor playing a deaf roll can be to someone who is used to signing, but there are other casting blunders to be addressed here. In this series you have Jaime Sommers, an American character, being played by (as I am sure you are aware) a non-American actress. I used to watch the actress, Michelle Ryan, in Eastenders, a UK soap opera (in which she had a broad east end of London accent, It’s very weird to see her in a US action show). . But I have an even more glaring casing error. She is not actually bionic, she is pretending to be, because she is an Actress.
So, I guess I am saying that I half totally agree with what you are saying, and half think “its just telly, its all made up, no point in getting upset about it”. Funny thing is, I always *do* get upset about it when I see yet another master villain in a movie who is supposed to be Russian, or eastern European, or form the Middle East and they all have Queens-English accents.
So in fact, I am not making any particular point at all. Good job I don’t do this for a living :¬S
Brownhaze, you do make a point now that I think of it.
ReplyDeleteBritish actors are often villains in American movies. Some people say it's the accent, some say it's their acting styles.
I've been watching Bionic Woman. However, I still do feel Michelle Ryan hasn't really settled in her role just yet. I recall seeing her in some British productions, the most recent one I can remember is Jekyll which just came out on DVD here.
Anyway, isn't Sean Connery from Scotland? He did play villain at least once but it was an awful movie. I'm sure you may have heard of it, it's based on the TV show, 'The Avengers'.
It's a big cliché these days that foreign actors are playing the evil masterminds and villains.
By the way, it's true Michelle Ryan isn't an actual bionic woman. Maybe we ought to protest.
Hee, just kidding.
Banjo,
ReplyDeleteFirstly, I am glad that you didn’t take my comments as any sort of a dig (you know what the internet can be like for starting arguments).
Secondly, a quick correction. There is a big difference between British and English. I am both British and English (and by extension, European), where as a Scott would be British and Scottish. Woe betide you if you accidentally called a Scott English (or probably British, they don’t like us very much). Great Britain is made up of two very distinct countries (England and Scotland) and one distinct Principality (Wales) who do not like being confused with each other
I have only watched the first two episodes of Bionic Woman. So far, I put it in to the “curiosity” category at the moment. I will keep watching in the hope that, as you say, she settles in the roll and the show will mature. If nothing else, she is pretty easy on the eye :¬D
I had the misfortune to watch some of the Avengers movie. I grew up with the Avengers on TV when I got home from school with all of its campness and over the top action. This was (as is normally the case) a good way of ruining something classic with a Hollywood adaptation. Interestingly, this could be an example of an English actor (Ralph Fiennes) playing an English hero (John Steed) but I am going to say it doesn’t count because he is such a caricature (bowler hat, umbrella, cup-of-tea, etc).
Scots do get to be villains in movies, but they are at least in with a chance of getting to be the hero, such as Sean Connery’s (definitive, until Daniel Craig came along), James Bond (Bond is half Scottish, true).
I can’t help but feel sorry for great English actors such as Ben Kingsley, Malcolm McDowell, Jeremy Irons, Alan Rickman, I could go on, who only ever get to play the pantomime baddy, unless they end up in sci-fi like Patrick Stewart (brilliant though he is).
My take on why the English end up as master villains is this. I take it all the way back to the American civil war and earlier. At that time in American history the British where seen as an occupying force. The commanders of this force would all, no doubt speak with a plumy English accent. The people of wealth and title that would have come to the new world would also have sounded like a classic English toff. These people, by default, would have been “powerful baddies”. The Irish on the other hand went to America to escape a potato famine, similarly, the Scots managed to maintain a “salt-of-the-earth” appeal (so much so that, as I understand it, may Americans like to go back to “the old country” to trace their lineage). I am sure it’s much more complicated then that, but you get the idea.
It’s a good point, for all I know she may be bionic, bud I never recall seeing her run at 40 mils an hour or lift a car on East Enders ;¬)
Thank you for the enlightenment on the difference between British and English. That's another one that I didn't know about. It takes one to know the difference.
ReplyDeletePatrick Stewart is basically a worshipped hero among the Sci-Fi geeks (Trekkies, X-Men fans, etc). Actually, I have always thought Patrick Stewart would have slipped in the role of Xavier without a problem years before the movie was even being worked on. He looks and acts the part.
I recall reading an article where Patrick Stewart stated he was disappointed he haven't been asked to play a role in any of the Harry Potter movies yet.
Thanks for the comments. Have a nice day. :-)
Now there's a cool character on Heroes! Hope you all can try to tune in for the rest of Season 4. Don't miss episode # 13 ;)
ReplyDeleteDeanne