CODA and Its Contribution to the Deaf Community

Ruby interprets for her family in the workplace, in doctor's offices, and in conversations with hearing people. While many of the things she has to interpret are uncomfortable and not appropriate, it is her reality, as well as that of all CODAs in the world, which stands for Children Of Deaf Adults.

Her family life also tends to seep its way into her personal life. At school, students tease her because of her deaf family. Her obligations to them conflict with her ambitious singing aspirations that she is pursuing with her music teacher, Mr. Bernardo Villalobos (Eugenio Berbez).

The family has varying opinions on Ruby's role in their lives. Her mother, Jackie (Marlee Matlin), greatly depends on Ruby and the bridge she builds for her in the hearing world, feeling isolated and alone when she isn't there. Her father, Frank (Troy Kostur), is also dependent on her in his work as a fisherman; Ruby interprets at work, answers radio calls, and gets up as early as 3 in the morning to work with them on the boat before school. Yet he recognizes that this is not normal for children. "She was never a baby," he tells his wife.

Ruby's older brother Leo (Daniel Durant), however, only sees her as another barrier between him and the hearing world. He believes that deaf people don't need interpreters to live in the world, and he certainly doesn't need his little sister to be an independent adult.

It is important to note that the movie stars deaf characters played by deaf actors; something pivotal to the Deaf community. The film is an adaptation of the 2014 French film La Famille Belier, where hearing actors played deaf characters. The adaptation features famous deaf actress Marlee Matlin, who has an Academy Award for Best Actress in Children of a Lesser God (1986). Troy Kostur won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role for his performance, as well as the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Locke & Key actress Emilia Jones is Ruby and her brother is played by Daniel Durant, Moritz Stiefel in the 2015 Broadway revival of Spring Awakening. Together they have won the SAG for Outstanding Performance by a Cast, and Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay)!

The Deaf community has always struggled with proper representation in the media. For example, have you ever noticed the interpreters signing the national anthem at the Super Bowl? If you have, have you ever seen more than five seconds of them? This has been a problem the Deaf community has raged about for years. Just in this year's Super Bowl, deaf actress Sandra Mae Frank performed the national anthem and “America The Beautiful '' with minimal screen time. Deaf rappers Sean Forbes and Warren Snipe, known as Wawa, worked hard on the very first ASL interpretation of a halftime show in history! Yet, unsurprisingly, there was no screen time for them at all. It’s frustrating for deaf performers to work hard on new ASL interpretations just to be shoved aside. It’s frustrating for the Deaf community to be promised a performance on national television, then have to end up waiting for them to be uploaded to Youtube.