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Caz: All right, well, this is your...
this is your thing.
Matt: Oh, it is part of it?
Caz: Yeah, this is part of it.
Matt: We’re just gonna start with...let’s just fucking do this.
Caz: Ya.
(Matt laughs)
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Matt: Hey, welcome to On Your Marker.
This is a film review site where
you will feel seen by a guy who can’t hear.
And that would be me
because I'm deaf.
lol
My name is Matt Marker.
I'm glad you're here.
And we're going to do a quick little audio
introduction
just so you have an idea of what
this is all about.
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Caz: Thanks for having me.
I am Caz Rosson;
I am Matt's girlfriend, and I'm here to
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Matt: Yeahhhh
(Caz laughs with side eye)
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here to interview him for this brief introduction.
All right, let's jump in.
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How long have you been obsessed with film?
Matt: How many times
have you used the bathroom in your life? (laughs)
I mean, ever since I've been able
to process visual information really.
I mean, I've been watching movies
ever since I was old
enough to sit upright on the floor
and probably even before that.
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Caz: How long have you been deaf?
Matt: Heh. The way I consider it and the narrative is
is that I've been deaf since birth,
however, my parents did not know that
until I was three years old.
It was kind of like Mr.
Holland’s Opus.
They’re like, ‘wait, he's
not responding to certain things.
Maybe he's more than just a difficult
child,’ which I was, but also deaf.
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Caz: How does that affect moviegoing for you?
Matt: I'm so glad you asked.
I mean, it really it really impacts
the whole moviegoing experience.
I mean, I can’t just walk into a movie
theater blind, metaphorically speaking.
So much of following
the plot is understanding the dialog
and the audio cues,
and it varies widely from movie to movie.
If I walk into a Christopher Nolan movie
without subtitles
that’s two hours of my life
that’s going to be a total waste.
‘cause
of all the brooding background music,
all the off...off-camera dialog and so on.
So it really it means I have to be
intentional about how I watch movies.
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Caz: So you've talked about the movie,
THE TUBA THIEVES,
which you saw at Sundance, and those open
captions will say a certain decibel level
or they'll describe the music
very specifically.
What is your experience of that?
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Matt: I consider myself having been mainstreamed and,
you know, integrated into the hearing community
to be grateful to have amplification.
When there’s sound like that in a movie -
jazzy music, moody music
- and so on, I'm able to perceive it
to some degree.
Whether or not I can tell
what I'm hearing is a different thing.
And that's something
that people don't always get
is that there's a difference
between hearing and comprehending.
00;03;05;12 - 00;03;10;09
I appreciate the detailed captioning
because I don't
necessarily have the vocabulary or
the knowledge of certain types of sounds
and music to describe what I'm hearing.
So I really appreciated THE TUBA THIEVES
because it not only...
it didn't just say ++music++ like it
describes the quality of the music,
it was like,
you know prolooooonged, like reed-y, or...
And then the captioning itself
also changed on screen to kind of mimic
the sound.
So like if the -
it was a prolonged sound, the
text itself would be stretched out.
So it really helps
you appreciate the quality
and the timing of the sound.
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To me, that was just the height of
inclusivity because it really allowed me
and other deaf viewers
presumably to perceive what,
you know, able bodied
people are able to pick up in the movie.
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Caz: I had never experienced closed
captioning consistently
until I was with you.
And now when I watch a film, I realize
how much of it I was missing out on.
Matt: Mm hmm.
Caz: But it's a lot of work reading the
closed captioning and watching the film.
So when you're watching a movie,
where is your eyeline?
How do you experience the film
but also basically read
the script at the same time?
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Matt: It becomes second nature.
So your eyes just kind of flick back
and forth between
the bottom of the screen and,
you know, the meat of the action.
The center of the frame.
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Going to the movies, it's a little
trickier because...well, it depends.
Some movie theaters,
I went to an AMC theater in Waterbury,
Connecticut, to see SUPERMAN,
or MAN OF STEEL, which eh,
but that's that
theater had a really cool gadget.
It was a set of glasses
that you would wear
so that the captioning was basically
being projected right in front of your eyeballs.
Your eyes didn't have to adjust.
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The theaters that we’re
relegated to here only have CaptiView devices
so with that you put the captioning device
in your cupholder.
It sticks up about a foot and a half.
So you have this screen
that's way far in the distance
and this captioning device that’s
right in front of your face.
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So you're constantly having to
look at the device right in front of you,
look back at the screen.
It can be taxing, especially
for longer movies or a movie, that has,
you know, really intense sequences
with a lot of dialog because there's
a noticeable gap in the time
it takes to look between the screen
and the device and back.
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And when that whole,
you know, issue happened with Sundance,
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you know, it really kind of,
you know, showed the value of open
captioning because open captioning means
that it's on the screen.
So the only adjustment
that your eyes have to make
are between the bottom of the screen
and the middle as opposed to
two different fields of vision, basically.
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Caz: I would urge all of your listeners
to use a closed captioning device
when you go see the next movie;
it's totally free, and it just,
you literally
just put it in the cupholder.
You will not believe yourself
at how much you're missing from a movie
by not having it.
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Matt: I remember seeing A QUIET PLACE part two,
which incidentally was,
you know, entertaining from a deaf
perspective in terms of representation.
But there's a really interesting scene
early on where they flashback to,
you know, the day the invasion happened
and there's a baseball game
and you see a comet or a meteor
falling down
and the CaptiView device
showed the baseball announcer dialog,
and per the captioning, you can
see the baseball announcer saying, “well,
that's the game, folks!”
And like, it’s
so, it's quiet enough in the film that the
person I was with didn't pick up on it.
So I was like, heh heh heh!
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Caz: Now you lip read.
But oftentimes when we're interacting
and I say something as I'm walking by
or I'm looking down, you can't entirely
understand what I'm saying.
Even though you've got your cochlear,
you know, it's obviously it's not perfect.
So you'll say to me:
‘I need eye contact to, to be able to understand you.’
Matt: Yeah.
Caz: So does lip reading come into it at all
when you're watching a film or does
is that more in an interaction?
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Matt: I don't
necessarily do as much lip reading
if I know I have captioning to rely on.
I mean, I still look to...
I still look at the actors faces
because any actor worth
their salt is gonna convey
so much in their facial expressions.
So I use that as like an emotional cue
but not so much to lip read.
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Obviously if there was no captioning I would have to lip read.
You know, if I had tried seeing Avatar
without captioning - good luck
lip reading those blue people.
But as far as eye contact,
I guess I use eye contact
as kind of a shorthand for just,
you know, facing me.
Because if your eyes are facing me,
then you are facing me
and I can see your eyes and your lips.
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When I lip read someone
I don't usually look just to the lips
because I find that the whole face
kind of tells me what you're saying.
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Caz: What do you hope to see in the future?
00;08;09;20 - 00;08;16;22
Matt: I think we've seen enough movies about
CisHet males, about straight white dudes.
So like, you know, movies
like Sundance had this year with MUTT,
you had this really beautiful, intimate,
low key story of a transgender male
just living their life.
And it was really touching.
00;08;28;20 - 00;08;32;02
And I think cinema is a really great forum
for exposing people to a viewpoint
that they didn't necessarily
have an understanding or appreciation
of...appreciation for.
So now, I think there's always room
for new perspectives, new voices.
I think stuff that speaks to the way that we are now
I'll always be there for,
and I'll always look forward to.
00;08;49;26 - 00;08;54;08
So stuff like CAT PERSON
that really telegraphed
the dangers of modern dating,
especially for women.
Like that felt like it was adding
to the conversation.
And like THE TUBA THIEVES, you know, I,
there's always room for people
playing with the form and like, testing
the limits of what a movie can be...
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that was an example of a ‘mood movie'
that was done right.
Again, because of the open captioning
and the director’s personal experience
with deafness.
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Caz: Obviously you have a very unique
perspective of film.
You're a doctor
on top of being a deaf man,
and I feel like I can ask you this...it's
an offensive question, I think,
but I feel like I can ask you this
because I'm your girlfriend.
Do you think having a disability affects
your taste?
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Matt: I am so offended.
No, I...hmm.
That's a really good question.
I... hmm.
I mean, I'm I'm sure I'm
I know
I'm more sensitive to tasteless jokes.
You know,
when people use deafness as a punchline,
or if a character uses it as an insult...
to me, that's lazy.
00;10;07;15 - 00;10;09;10
There is a way to do deaf jokes.
There is a way to address...
to recognize deaf people and the humor
inherent in their experience to a degree.
You know, like as offensive as Family
Guy can be
and is, at least in the early seasons,
there were some really funny jokes
about deaf people that made me laugh
because they just weren't
making fun of them.
00;10;29;21 - 00;10;31;21
Like there’s this joke
where they go to the Olympics
like there’s a Special Olympics,
and they cut to the field
and the announcer’s like, alright
where are the deaf people and it cuts
to them like oversleeping in their bunks
because they don't hear the alarm clock.
Like that’s...that's not mean spirited to me.
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Caz: There's been a lot of deafness in film
in the past couple of years that's really
kind of catapulted into the mainstream.
I mean, does it feel like a fad?
Does it feel like
people are kind of using it?
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Matt: I mean, not to step outside my lane,
but I feel like it's a problem that any
underrepresented group faces when they
finally start to get some representation.
I'm glad that we're getting more
attention.
Ya know, these new movies are starting
to normalize our experience.
You know, SOUND OF METAL especially.
I felt seen.
00;11;23;17 - 00;11;28;28
As long as we're not used as a gimmick
or as shorthand for,
‘Hey, look how accessible we are,
look how inclusive we are.’ Like
there was a commercial...Hersheys,
I think, you know, it’s
this high school hallway
and this guy is opening his locker
and this girl comes up to
him signs something to him,
I might be getting the genders mixed up,
but basically they use sign language
to sell candy.
That bothered me a little bit
because that felt like cheap and cynical.
I worry...that would be my only concern
is that deaf people become used
just to further some capitalist market economy thing.
00;12;03;15 - 00;12;06;03
I hope that people don't look at a movie
like CODA
which you know yeah, it's a crowd pleaser.
It’s basically LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE
with deaf people.
But there's some real heart there.
There's some real emotion.
I worry that people are going to look
at that and take away the wrong message
and just be like, ‘you know what?
Let’s remake CATS but with deaf people.”
Nobody wants to watch that.
Nobody wanted to watch the previous
one, ya know, without the buttholes.
As long as
it's authentic and it keeps moving forward
in a positive direction, I'm there.
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Caz: Do you get tired of talking about it?
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Matt: CATS? Yeah.
About deafness?
I would say actually, mostly no,
just because I would much prefer
somebody asked me about it than make assumptions.
When I see somebody who's otherwise smart
and intellectual and fumbles through...
fumbles
their way through an interaction with me
because they just didn't stop to ask...
I'll lose some respect for them,
which sounds harsh, but it's kind of true.
You know, this is my life.
Like, if you don't ask me about it,
it's just going to lead
to an awkward interaction
or you're going to miss out
on deepening your understanding
of other people in the world.
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Caz: Cool.
Would you like to add anything else?
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Matt: No. :::laughs:::
I hope people
have as much fun
listening to this as we did making it.
Caz: (skeptical) Did you have fun making this?
Matt: Yeahhhhh...
Caz: No, you didn't.
Matt: Yeahh.
I feel like
Alec Baldwin talking about Schweddy Balls
and not Alec Baldwin, ‘the murderer.’
I, it... not that it was his fault.
I think that
if people are going to be held
accountable,
I think everybody involved
in the production of the movie
needs to be held accountable
and not just the star of the movie.
00;13;45;06 - 00;13;45;13
Caz (nervous): All right.
Matt: He is a producer, but anyway...
Caz: ...let's not get into that. :::Matt laughs mischievously:::
Caz (laughing): You just knocked the mic over.
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Matt: Thanks for stopping by On Your Marker.
This is my little film review site.
I try to add my unique perspective
as a deaf person wherever I can
and I hope you enjoy reading the reviews
as much as I've enjoyed writing them.
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Phhhhhht.
Get fucked.
:::Caz laughs:::
Oh! :::giggles::::
Conversation over.