46 thoughts on “Hallmark Hall of Fame Sweet Nothing in My Ear Trailer Captioned”

  4. I can’t wait to watch this movie. I am so glad that cochlear implants are getting national TV time. It will serve to make people more aware of this technology. My husaband and I had to make the same decision. And our two-year old son received bilateral cochlear implants in January 2008.

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  8. I almost get cochlear implant but remember that will not always help you improved your hear as hearing people. They should accept who they are. If you think cochlear implant will help you for your future? but as deaf can still get their goals if they work harder. I know it a tough decision when a hearing parents do what is best for their deaf kids but should let the kids decide when they are older. I can’t wait to see this movie.

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  11. why not to wears hearingaids than drill hole to skull it full of crap n bad pain n headaches too n etc n i have two freinds hve removed it it not worth shit n im against cochlear implant waste time thank

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  12. wow,
    I can’t wait to watch this movie to show the WORLD Cochlear Impant is not really helpful to deaf children unless they want to … to me I will not let my deaf child to get a Cochlear Implant… If a hard of hearing can get Cochlear Implant not for deaf children I disagree with this… I total agree with Marlee Martin… winks

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  13. Can’t wait to see this movie. My son is deaf. We waited until he could make his own decision (at age 15) about a cochlear implant. We did not want him to think we wanted to change him or were unhappy with his deafness. We talked alot about the procedure, etc and he ultimately made his own decision to have the implant. Sometimes he’s glad he has it and sometimes he’s not. At least he has the option to “hear” if he wants to…..

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  15. Boy! Better natural and don’t force any deaf child. I prefer to see them happy life with hearing or deaf parents. I believe what God wants. Leave them alone.

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  17. I’m relatively new to the learning about the deaf community, but here are my thoughts:

    In the movie, it mentions that generally deaf graduate with a fourth grade reading level, (although the follow up to that point is that hearing only graduate with a fifth grade reading level)

    ASL is a often a deaf person’s primary language, and has a different grammatical structure than English, and is a visual rather than written language.

    A deaf person doesn’t hear people speaking English.

    Many deaf student’s had an early education which spent several hours a day of lipreading and speech, instead of basic education. A good Bilingual education, with reading skills being taught by someone who can communicate to a deaf person in their language, would probably encourage reading more,the love of reading being one of the keys to excellent written communication skills.

    That being said, many of the deaf I personally know have much better English writing skills than I.

    Is there anybody with a more informed answer?

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  19. i cant wait to watch a movie……….. i dont believe in ci.. im proud to be deaf and ci can kill brain

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  20. Oh come on!!! Us deaf people never had any problems being with hearing people. In fact, hearing people had more fun with us..as long as they don’t mind it. Yes..deaf disability is invisible and wearing the CI will obviously helps to notice it and stay away. It’s too big and ugly. I feel sorry for the deaf kids that don’t understand and have the power and to tell their parents, “NO…I don’t want it”. I just hope that the insurance didn’t pass the bill to help pay for the freakin’ surgery. It’s not necessary in the first place. We are what we are and we are happy…..

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  21. Yes, ASL is a different language altogether. It has it’s own syntax. This is why sometimes deaf people will write the way they speak. It is not necessarily grammatically incorrect.

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  22. I’m hearing alot of deaf people arguing against implants — even all the more so especially when it has to do with kids; but have those same people even considered this: it’s entirely up to the person whether they want an implant or not?

    Maybe a deaf person wants to have an implant, to be able to experience something they’re missing out on. If that’s what they desire, then that’s their choice, and we all, DEAF OR HEARING, should respect that. To do anything less would be shameful. Educating them on the pros and cons of getting CI’s, and on whether one should accept being deaf, or strive to find a way to lessen/remove the handicap is very much noble, even laudable; but we also must be careful to not attempt to “educate” them when it is not welcomed by them.

    Just because a deaf person chooses to get a CI does NOT make them any less natural than a deaf or hearing person. To treat them as unnatural due to their choice simply means we’re the ones who should be taking hard looks at ourselves and our perspectives; we may be guilty of bigotry by labeling them unnatural.

    We also should remember; just because a deaf person chooses to remain deaf does NOT make them defective or subhuman; they simply chose to remain with the deaf lifestyle. We should respect that choice. They are just as equal to the hearing, AS WELL AS those with CIs.

    I’m deaf, I was born deaf, I speak fluent ASL, but if I had a kid who was born hearing, but eventually turned deaf, I would have them implanted with a CI because that’d ensure that they would have a much more broad range of possible futures open to them than if they were deaf.

    In the trailer, Marlee says “Deafness is NOT a disability”; I must say I disagree with her. Let us examine the word “disability”. What exactly does disability mean? The ‘dis’ part of ‘disability’ is a prefix to the actual word ‘ability’. Ability, would obviously be defined as something that a person can do. ‘Dis’ basically negates any word it is prefixed, making it the opposite. In this case, “disability” would mean not being able to do something. So for the deaf, we are not able to hear; therefore that constitues as a disability. That arguement is incontrovertible and cannot be disputed; fact is fact.

    Would I get a cochlear implant if I could? Yes. Would I be scared of getting one? Yes, I’d be scared to death. But humanity as a whole would never experience new things, innovate, and make progress if they always allowed fear to hold them back. Why don’t I have a CI then? Because the doctor told me that unfortunately due to being born deaf, I did not qualify for a CI. Don’t worry, I’ve lived for 26 years being deaf, I don’t mind living longer being deaf. I would have loved to experience what it was like to be able to hear though.

    Enough rambling on my part. 🙂

    I can’t wait to check out the movie, it should be quite good and insightful. 🙂

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  24. I like the quote form this article
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/16/AR2008041602436_2.html

    “At first we absolutely, adamantly said there would be subtitles, not voice actors,” Sargent said. But test audiences who viewed the film said the subtitles were a distraction from the unfolding story.

    “In a foreign film, you hear the actor’s voice and it connects emotionally,” Sargent said. With viewers reading subtitles, trying to match words to the actions on screen, “we had the silence that robbed us of that emotional link.”

    Sadly, I think the voice actors don’t do nearly the same quaility of acting, thinking even of the preview above where Marlee says “He’s our child”. Then again, I’m not the “common man” in that subtitles don’t bother me as much, probably due to exposure.

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  26. As to “Fred’s” question “why do alot of comments writers have such poor grammar?” He is ignorant of the Deaf Culture – he should look into it and find the answer to this as there is a good one. His question typifies the misunderstanding of the Hearing Culture toward the Deaf people.

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  27. Hello I hailed from Calgary, Alberta.. as a deaf person wearing a hearing aide means i am hard of hearing? i am never sure about anything.. regarding to Don about the term dis-ability. i stand firm with Don.. Many thanks.. on a last note. the word hearing impaired is something i often corrected hearing people. impaired means something that is broken and doesnt reconized as hard of hearing or deaf. so therefore i chose to tell people i have a hearing loss. if i said i am deaf.. i am treated like they dont know how to behave around someone who is deaf.. but i said i have a hearing loss i suddenly notice i was treated with respect. go figure.. love to hear from you more, Don . thanks for the biggest feedback. Patty

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  28. Responding to Bill’s question:
    “Many of the deaf have better English skills than I. Is there anybody with a more informed answer?”

    Try a Remedial Reading Development program administered at state universities.
    Mine was from State University New York (SUNY) at Potsdam, NY and was administered by an Episcopalian Priest. The course was an independent “self-study” course I took for nearly a year during 1972.

    Been deaf since age 3 and with this course at age 25 I went from something like a 6th grade reading level and some 221 words a minute with 50% comprehension to over 1 and 1/2 year college level, 1,500 words a minute with 100% comprehension!

    Results showed when I attended and graduated from NTID-RIT 1973-1976 in all my ‘aced” term papers. Prior to that in High school, I even failed English in the 10th grade at Brush High School at Mayfield Hts., OH and same after graduation from Gouverneur JR & SR High School at Gouverneur, NY during summer orientation courses in English at Canton Agricultural and Technical College (CATC now a part of Canton University) at Canton, NY. My entire pre-secondary education was spent at 16 different hearing mainstreamed school systems betwen various towns and cities of Ohio and New York from K-12. I often was the only deaf student in all of the schools, including the last year of a one room one teacher schoolhouse in the farming country of northern NY with some first cousins. Today i am a pretty proud Pop Pop of 5 hearing children and 13 hearing grandchildren. My two son’s seem to have developed some hearing losses during their later adolescence/early adulthood. None of theirs it is Genetic. And my children’s mother was speech disabled as well as some other physical limitations from post-polio. It tok a lot out of me to make sure my children didn’t develop speech and English problems themselves while performing multi to high level computer operations, computer programming maintenance, analysis, design, testing and live field implementations for companies like Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Sybron, Computer Sciences Corp(contract programmer), Computer Task Group(CTG- contract senior programmer) Xerox Corporation (contracted and permanent programmer through Senior Information Systems Analyst(PGMR !).
    my proudest moments in this occupation was when I was a permanent part of Team Xerox in helping them win the 1991 Macolm Baldrige(U.S. Secretary of Commerce) Award for Xerox being best manufacturing Company in America and then the most coveted turning of the tables on the japanese then when Team Xerox won the 1992 Famed Edward Deming Award(world reknown writer critcizing America’s complacency in manufacturing and marketing world competition) for the best manufacturing company in the world! It took a lot of great “Baby Boomers” (hearing and deaf) motivated with great analytical comprehension, reading and writing skills in TEAMWORK to pull this off.
    Harv

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  29. Hey! Looking foward for the movie! can’t barely wait! You guys are very great actors! Hope you will make another movie again!!

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  30. Hey! hope that the movie will be good! Can’t wait to see the movie! My whole family is going to watch it! Lucky me cause I can sleep late because I have no school on Monday!!

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  31. I am a deaf person, and I do wear a cochlear implant. There is positive and negative point of views that I have. The positive thing, I am now able to hear songs for my local church and sign the words. I also can go to the movies and be enjoyed. The negative part is when there is quiet all over and then suddlenly some hearing people or deaf would scream and I could faint. Ha ha.

    Another negative is that the hearing people always assume that since I got a cochlear implant, that mean I’m suddenly be able to speak at all! So once again.. negative and positive point of views.

    Thanks!
    Cory

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  32. CI cannot kill your brain. I know many individuals who are Deaf and many with CI. You can be both if other Deaf individuals will have open mind. You take it off, you are still Deaf. The issue with waiting until you are older to make a decision is THAT is when it will not really work.

    Most of the people who are older and know people who got them years ago and now do not wear them, that is because they were crap at first, this is normal for most technology. They were single channel and also the age that they were approved for was later in life. They work best, if your goals are for speech and language development when they are implanted young. You can still learn sign, and if other people would stop discriminating you can have pride in your Deafness as well.

    A CI is a choice, take it or leave it, but most of the comments on here about how CI does not work, kills brain, etc. they are unfortunately making a group of intelligent and self sufficient people seem as though they are not. Please, I am very involved in the Deaf community, I am an advocate. that is why I am so embarrassed whenever I see this type of argument, the grammar, and making false statements, If you want to fight over hearing and CI etc, do your homework for real so that you do not solidify bad rumors that Deaf are stupid, cannot read, write etc. Do your homework, it is not that CI is for everyone, go ahead, do not get one…but do not insist that they do not work. If used appropriately they DO.

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  33. I am watching this movie right now and Marlee Matlin is talking… ok she is signing but they have someone talking for her… what happened to subtitles???

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  34. Subtitles are for the hearing. I am an interpreter for the deaf. I am a proud parent of a deaf child. It is his choice to have a implant not mine. I have seen both successes and failures. If more people would bother to learn the language, this would not even be a topic for a television show. It breaks my heart how people shy away from deaf people, only because they have not bothered to learn teir language. If I can advise people anything, is to learn the ABC”s if nothing else. Talk to them, learn about them, they are wonderful people with a different insight to the world.

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  35. I saw the movie last night; I am a hearing person currently learning ASL. I don’t have an informed opinion about the implants, but I do have a disabled child so I know how a parent must make decisions for such a child, and how agonizing they can be. I think the parents and the child deserve support from their peers. I suppose, as Don pointed out above, that deafness is a disablitiy in the strictest sense. But I think Deaf people do not view it as such, nor should they let it interfere with their lives any more than they must. If they want to sign, great. Seems to me this is probably the easiest and most natural course. The oral method seems so arduous and so time-consuming. I have to wonder who they’re doing it for–I don’t think it’s really all that much for themselves. Are we, the hearing community (parents, teachers) forcing deaf children into our mold? Isn’t it more for ourselves than for them? True, they probably have more career options if they can hear and speak–at least in the hearing world they do. But whose fault is that?

    American education, and Americans, generally do not stress learning anything but English. Contrast this with other parts of the world, where people routinely learn 2, 3, or more languages. Why don’t we do this? Why not learn ASL while we’re young, when the language-asquisition ability is strongest? We hearing people could be gaining a whole other group of folks to communicate with. And if more people spoke their language, then wouldn’t discrimination against the Deaf have to at least begin to disappear?

    I learned fingerspelling as a kid because I was interested, but I’m trying to do this ASL thing as an adult. The advantages I have are motivation and the experience of already having become fluent in a 2nd language–so I know what I’m in for, I know how to learn. It’s daunting, but it’s also fascinating.

    As for the subtitles, or absence therof, in the film, I was grateful because they do distract me. Perhaps as I get more educated and accustomed to them that reaction will diminish. At the moment, I was grateful not to have to deal with them. And I was in awe at Jeff Daniels’ skill–I could sink into despair if I let myself. On the other hand, it is a hopeful sign (you should pardon the pun) if I choose to let it be so, that someone could get that good as an adult. Maybe there’s hope for me after all.

    OK, enough already!
    Doe

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  36. WOW!! As a parent of a child with bilateral implants, I am floored at some of the comments about “changing who my child is” etc… Doesn’t every decision I make as a parent affect the course of my child’s life? Where she attends school, our religion as a family, our family unit, where we live, etc??? Also, the absurdity to think that I would wait until “she was able to make the choice”!!! It would be WAY TOO LATE by then. I will encourage her to learn sign language as she grows older, but won’t require it. Let’s face it…this world is a hearing world…and to give her the most opportunity in life, I believe is to give her the ability to hear!!! and talk. My daughter is 3 1/2 years old and speaks and hears beautifully. If your interested, you can view a clip of her singing on youtube. The title of the clip is “our amazing miracle”. Hope you enjoy! It seems quite ironic to me that the argument is mainly from deaf people over those getting implants. I don’t see many hearing people (or implant users) judging deaf people for not getting implants!! So, for those of you against our decision as parents….be a little more open minded and not so judgemental!!! 🙂

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  37. I am very interested in reading other’s comments regarding this movie (most especially, those who have previously commented here).

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  38. I did not really like the movie Sweet Nothing in my Ear.. it wasnt deep enough. just a bunch of people scrabbling but not getting to the real issues.
    The ending was a disappointment and i speak for every one else who agreed with me. the story line was not good.

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  39. I agreed with Rachel 100 %. ALthough i am 52 years old.. i wish the CI was done 20 or 30 years ago.. way to go Rachel! and my adult sons are hearing but if they were deaf i would get them the CI. it not about choices.. it about quality of life for them in a hearing world.

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  40. Dear Fred,
    This is in regards to your comment about why the people commenting tend to have poor “English Grammar” – try taking a look at deaf education. In the beginning, deaf education utilized sign language (French signs mixed with Martha’s Vineyard signs). This allowed the deaf person to gain a basis language. A basis language is required in order to learn any native or foreign language. Those deaf became educators and some worked as editors for newspapers. However, since the 1880’s, Alexander Graham Bell and others focused on making the Deaf more Hearing and forced sign language out of schools (speech only). Much of the education experience before the 70’s consisted of “no sign” attitude. This killed many young deaf for a strong basis language skill. Their ability to learn all aspects of English Grammar and use it (not just mimic it) was diminished. The commentary grammar is just an example of what happens when Hearing try to make Deaf more hearing!

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  42. I became hearing-impaired at age 6 following an illness. I got hearing aids at age 26. I grew up at a time when hearing aid technology was poor, and doctors felt aids would distort sound more than improve it. A few years ago, I considered a CI, until I learned that the procedure would destroy my residual hearing and not offer any guarantee for success. If the procedure failed, I would no longer be a candidate for hearing aids. I also learned that the CI would add more gizmos to the side of my head, not relieve me of them. However, a parent’s job is to provide the very best opportunities for a child’s success in life. Therefore, if I had a deaf child, I certainly would seriously consider a CI, if the likelihood existed that he would gain some hearing. As far as waiting until he could make his own decision, I believe that the earlier the exposure to sound and speech, the greater the chance for success. Certainly, there are upsides and downsides to CI — as there are with anything in life.

    I have attempted to learn sign language several times — to give myself more options, should I eventually become totally deaf. Unfortunately, I don’t have anyone to sign with. I learned a number of signs, but without someone to sign with, I didn’t have much success at interpreting them when I was on the receiving end.

    I thought the movie was excellent. In my opinion, the writers did a fine job of capturing the family’s struggles in a limited amount of time.

    A note about subtitles/captioning being distracting for hearing viewers . . . like anything new or different, they can take some getting used to. My husband is fully hearing and was uncomfortable with captions at first. Now, however, he loves them, as they often capture bits of dialogue that can’t be heard. He shares my pain about poor quality captions that make the viewing experience more difficult, rather than pleasant.

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  43. I’m not deaf, but I am legally blind without my corrective lenses. But after reading your comments about CI, I realized how unnatural it was for me to wear my thick (and really ugly) glasses. Being blind is not a disability just like being deaf isn’t.

    So next time your on the road, wave to me. I’ll be the blind girl without the glasses…with her car wrapped around a tree.

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  44. In the film the child was born hearing, and lost his hearing. I think the film made an excellent point that it wasn’t a clear-cut decision, and talked about the difficulty regarding making the choice.

    I have known many deaf people, and understand why they don’t like to consider deafness a “disability”. “Deafness” doesn’t denote something they can’t do, it refers to a missing SENSE. My daughter received a brain injury that resulted in partial paralysis of her face, including her tongue. She is disabled because there are things she cannot do. A deaf person doesn’t necessarily have any missing abilities, only a missing sense. Granted, deafness affects the ability to communicate (this point is brought up repeatedly in the movie) but it doesn’t prevent people from communicating.

    As for the point that deaf people read at a lower level, I can only offer my own observations. I was always in advanced and “gifted” classes in school, and I have no reason to think that my intelligence is lacking. Yet my deaf friend in high school read about three times as fast as I did, and read prodigiously more than anyone I knew at that time. He was a class officer, a sterling scholar in science, and is now an architect. It would be hard to label him “disabled”.

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