I usually dislike any sport that does not take place on snow or ice, but the summer X games are an exception. I’ve been watching it all weekend, especially the skateboarding and BMX events.
Today, I watched the final womens motocross race. I was about to fast-forward through it – I dislike motocross and I dislike racing, so it’s not a great combo. But then I noticed that someone was signing, so I hit “play.”
Turns out that the woman who was signing is named Ashley Fiolek. She is a deaf 19-year old who has won gold in the past. The segment that I’d seen was one of those special segments where they take a prominent athlete – usually somebody who is looking to repeat a previous victory – and interview her or him. In this case, they asked Ashley how she got involved in motocross and so forth. She communicates in ASL and uses an interpreter. (According to her bio on Wikipedia, she actually went to a deaf school as a child.)
It was really interesting for me to see how the producers of the interview handled her. They did mention that Ashley had managed to “overcome” her deafness, which is a really annoying trope. But the invocation of this trope was extremely low, especially if one compares how the media handles somebody like Amy Winters, a runner who has a prosthetic leg. Actually, I think the narrator only said the word “overcome” once when discussing Ashley.
Instead, they emphasized the fact that she couldn’t hear her dirtbike and instead relied on her sense of touch. Now, I don’t know much about motocross, but I was puzzled. I thought to myself, “Isn’t that what everyone does?” I’m still a little puzzled, honestly, as to how hearing could possibly be an advantage in a motocross race.
In fact, Ashley said that she saw her deafness as an asset because it enabled her to focus better on her race. I had to smile – I’ve said the exact same thing before. (Okay, it was about an academic competition, not a motocross race, but still.) It was awesome to see somebody going on television and saying that deafness is a positive quality, not just a neutral quality.
Overall, I thought it was a nice representation of a deaf female athlete with a minimum of tokenization. Personally, most of the athletes that I admire happen to be women (like the snowboarder Hannah Teter), but female athletes are far from being given equal respect as male athletes. This is especially noticable at the X games. Plus, Ashley is deaf. So it’s nice for me to see this positive portrayal of a strong deaf woman that doesn’t invite pity.
Also, remember how I said I dislike racing events? Well… I’m just gonna say this: Check out the race if you can because it’s actually pretty exciting.
2 Comments
i think maybe you found a new sport to love :3
i think hearing can play an important role in operating a machine, but i think the sense of touch can play the same role, so maybe it is kinda helpful. it’d help you tune into how it’s performing at a given moment, what the terrain is doing, etc.
kind of like, you know, it’s extra information. it’s there, and you use it, but you can do without it, but it’s surprising what it can add. like with cooking. you never expect how hearing contributes to that until you examine that.
Lol, yes, I agree with that first sentence.
I don’t know – I think that, at very low frequencies like this, hearing and touch are virtually identical. I’d have to get on a dirtbike myself to try.