Comments on Redeafined: What the "Fake Sign Language Interpreter" Really Said

I understand your point of view. I know that Žižek...

2014-01-22T08:04:17.130-05:00

I understand your point of view. I know that Žižek does not touch the issue of deafness and that is the problem in his article, but then again he is a philosopher and does probably not know much about deaf people and deafness in general.

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Hi, Roman! Thanks for reading Redeafined! I appre...

2014-01-20T19:03:03.903-05:00

Hi, Roman!

Thanks for reading Redeafined! I appreciate your point--having taught other pieces of Zizek's to my undergraduate students, I am sensitive to his general tonal register and use of sarcasm. However, whether or not the statement of interpreters being for hearing people was meant as sarcasm or not, the larger issue with the piece for us remains the same: Zizek doesn't come to undermine his discussion of deafness as a "problem" any more than the masses he seeks to critique in his article, thus furthe perpetuating the victimization he sets out to deconstruct, here, as elsewhere.

Thanks again for visiting our site.

I have to say that at the 5th point of your articl...

2014-01-20T17:21:09.505-05:00

I have to say that at the 5th point of your article you may have misinterpreted what Žižek meant. That was meant as sarcasm, as a critic of our society. For example, in my country Slovenia, a few years ago we had interpreters on TVs during elections or election campaigns, but they were in a small square in a corner of the TV screen, almost impossible to understand what he/she is interpreting (because of the size). So you have to ask yourself, for whom is the interpreter there? Of course it is for deaf people, but it is also to get the votes from hearing viewers. Hearing people thought to themselves "oh, how nice that they take care for the poor deaf people" because they think that deaf people are like "children with cancer" as you stated. Unfortunately most hearing people don't have a clue about sign language or deaf people and that is what happened in Africa - they just wanted to get an interpreter real quick, they didn't check his credentials, because they just cared about making the whole ceremony solemn and nice to look at.
You must not take Žižek's article literally. He criticises the society through this article on how we exploit such events for mass appeal.