The Importance of Deaf Representation in Animated Media

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-138-8_34How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Deaf representation; animated media; disabilities

Abstract

Representation in media has diversified, thanks to continuous efforts from minorities who expressed the need for more portrayals of their people and culture. However, representation of disabled people, specifically deafness, is still a work in progress. Deaf portrayals on screen over the years have been changing for the better since it started many decades ago, with a few noteworthy examples being the Oscar-winning drama film, CODA (2021), A Quiet Place (2018) and Hush (2016). Despite these breakthroughs, those films were not free from any criticisms due to several inaccuracies and reliance on stereotypes. Within Malaysia, there are some visible deaf portrayals in live action films, the most well known examples being Pekak (2016) and Talentime (2009), which both had deaf characters playing prominent roles in the story. However, in both of these films, there are several aspects of the portrayals that leave rooms for improvements in terms of storytelling and characterization. In summation, disability representation overall is still limited in Malaysia, with some noteworthy examples emerging mostly in live action formats. For the countries with the highest numbers of animation that is accessible to Malaysian audiences, Japan and the United States, representations of minorities in animation are growing at an exponential rate with the proliferation of social justice movements such as Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Pride Month. This research will dive into the knowledge of deaf representation in animated media from Japan and the US, to learn what can be implemented into the Malaysian animation industry and to discover the importance of deaf representation.

Copyright

© 2023 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Sharafina binti Teh Sharifuddin
AU  - Vimala a/p Perumal
AU  - Hushinaidi bin Abdul Hamid
PY  - 2023
DA  - 2023/11/16
TI  - The Importance of Deaf Representation in Animated Media
BT  - Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Creative Multimedia 2023 (ICCM 2023)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 365
EP  - 377
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-138-8_34
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-138-8_34
ID  - Sharifuddin2023
ER  -