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Nov. 21st, 2020 10:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cosmolinguistThank you for all the good questions on the trans entry the other day. I am looking forward to answering them all, but I'm so tired now I don't have the brains for it.
So instead today I'll tell you about an article I read, about how a new Spiderman video game has a Black deaf character, sign-acted (with supplemental voice acting) by a Black deaf actor, with additional deaf consultants to hopefully avoid obvious abled and English-centric mistakes in the portrayal.
Cool!
But! At the end, where the article talks about that voice acting of the signed conversations, the writer says its "for players with low visibility."
I couldn't stop giggling at this. I tolddiffrentcolours "I'm not blind, I just have low visibility! Am I transparent? Can you see me?"
Just...say "blind." Say "visually impaired." Say "disabled." Don't be afraid. Talking around it is so much worse, not just because treating "disabled" like a bad word tends to coincide with treating disabled people badly -- both stemming from the belief that it's bad to be disabled, otherwise it wouldn't feel rude to say so! It's also had because pretty much every way to avoid saying "disabled" is not only a shibboleth test that you've just failed, it opens you up to a world of possible inadvertent offensiveness.
At best, the offense is just to good grammar and clear writing which makes more awkward phrasing stick out like a sore thumb, but at worst, like here, it's actually dehumanizing. Where people who can't see well are literally being misconstrued as not being seen, it's funny on the surface but it's also apt to make us think about all the ways that we aren't "seen" in metaphorical ways: we aren't known, we aren't understood, the social barriers put up to us and the help we could benefit from is usually opaque to sighted people. Afraid of getting something wrong, most sighted people find it easier to never try to "see" us at all, and that can certainly be disheartening.
Especially baffling when, as here, the phrase could've been avoided altogether! The article could just say the actor recorded her lines in English as well. There's no need to mention who it's for -- and, cynically, I expect it's not just there for blindies (how accessible is the rest of the video game likely to be for blind people? I assume not very?); it's probably more likely there for the comfort of the ableds who notoriously don't like having to read subtitles.
So instead today I'll tell you about an article I read, about how a new Spiderman video game has a Black deaf character, sign-acted (with supplemental voice acting) by a Black deaf actor, with additional deaf consultants to hopefully avoid obvious abled and English-centric mistakes in the portrayal.
Cool!
But! At the end, where the article talks about that voice acting of the signed conversations, the writer says its "for players with low visibility."
I couldn't stop giggling at this. I told
diffrentcolours "I'm not blind, I just have low visibility! Am I transparent? Can you see me?"Just...say "blind." Say "visually impaired." Say "disabled." Don't be afraid. Talking around it is so much worse, not just because treating "disabled" like a bad word tends to coincide with treating disabled people badly -- both stemming from the belief that it's bad to be disabled, otherwise it wouldn't feel rude to say so! It's also had because pretty much every way to avoid saying "disabled" is not only a shibboleth test that you've just failed, it opens you up to a world of possible inadvertent offensiveness.
At best, the offense is just to good grammar and clear writing which makes more awkward phrasing stick out like a sore thumb, but at worst, like here, it's actually dehumanizing. Where people who can't see well are literally being misconstrued as not being seen, it's funny on the surface but it's also apt to make us think about all the ways that we aren't "seen" in metaphorical ways: we aren't known, we aren't understood, the social barriers put up to us and the help we could benefit from is usually opaque to sighted people. Afraid of getting something wrong, most sighted people find it easier to never try to "see" us at all, and that can certainly be disheartening.
Especially baffling when, as here, the phrase could've been avoided altogether! The article could just say the actor recorded her lines in English as well. There's no need to mention who it's for -- and, cynically, I expect it's not just there for blindies (how accessible is the rest of the video game likely to be for blind people? I assume not very?); it's probably more likely there for the comfort of the ableds who notoriously don't like having to read subtitles.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-11-21 11:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-11-22 03:11 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-11-22 10:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-11-22 12:51 pm (UTC)https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53093613
And obviously ASL is the appropriate language for this game and character but hoping there will be games that include BSL in future. It's definitely going to be bit more complicated to make regionally-appropriate than having a voice-artist record a dub....
(no subject)
Date: 2020-11-23 07:11 am (UTC)(frozen) (no subject)
Date: 2020-11-23 06:28 pm (UTC)It's probably voiced there for the people who don't want to have to read subtitles, yes, which I find baffling, because subtitles are really useful for making sure I actually heard what I thought I heard. (And I am missing them greatly in playing an old game that doesn't have them and is fully voiced.)