I’ve finally began watching Star Trek: The Next Generation. I recently saw a very interesting episode, Loud As A Whisper, about a Deaf diplomat named Riva. (For those who are curious, it is the 31st episode and is in Season, 2 episode 5.) This review/analysis contains spoilers.
From the beginning, Riva comes off as extremely self-assured. He has no problem with being Deaf, saying that he was born Deaf and hopes to die Deaf. I was pleased to see a positive attitude towards Deafness from the start.
As it turns out, he is from a royal family in which Deafness is hereditary. He compares it to other royal families who have hemophilia. I found this interesting, because it implies that being Deaf is more acceptable in Riva’s society than it is in our society because it is associated with royalty. Thinking about it, it was a refreshing change to see a Deaf individual in a position of power for whom Deafness is not detrimental.
Rather than signing, Riva speaks through three individuals, his “chorus,” that he is telepathically linked to. Because Riva had no issue understanding people, I assume that they told him via telepathy what others said.
In some ways, Riva’s relationship to his chorus reflects actual interpreter/client relationships. For example, in one scene, Picard speaks to a member of the chorus. Riva becomes angry and says, “Speak directly to me!” Anybody who has ever had an interpreter will be very familiar with this exact scenario. (Picard then apologizes, promising that it will never happen again – and it doesn’t. This is a very good model for Hearing people, and I’m glad that it was in the episode.)
What struck me, though, was that Riva’s relationship to his chorus is much, much deeper than the average interpreter/client relationship. As it turns out, the three individuals in the choir speak for different aspects of his personality: one is the scholar/philosopher/logician; one is the warrior/libido; one is the mediator that binds together the other two. Riva does not even speak to them and we never learn their names, but they don’t seem to mind. Rather than being mere interpreters, the chorus is an extension of Riva himself.
Such close symbiosis with one’s interpreters contrasts markedly with my own experiences. I grew up talking with my interpreters, and I was always aware that they had lives and worries vastly different from my own. Some were very open about everything going on in their lives, but even the most private interpreters shared some things with me, like what they did on Thanksgiving. So I kind of wonder why Star Trek portrayed such a close relationship between Riva and his chorus. My hunch is that it has to do with the fact that Riva is royalty; perhaps his chorus belongs to a slave class or something. Personally, though, I liked the fact that Riva’s relationship to his interpreters was different than mine: it’s a science-fiction TV show, so it makes sense that his society would have evolved a different protocol. It’s nice to see some creativity rather than trying to force our current norms upon those of an alien society.
When Riva arrives on the Enterprise, he meets Geordi LaForge, who is blind and wears a visor. Riva asks Geordi several polite questions about the visor and his eyesight. I liked this because a lot of people assume that, because I am deaf, I possess more knowledge of people who have non-hearing-related disabilities. That’s not true at all; being deaf does not give me special insight into being blind. In response to Riva’s queries, Geordi says, “Well, I was born this way, and I like myself, so I like being blind.” Riva says that he feels the same way about his Deafness and praises Picard for being inclusive. They got along because both of them possessed a different array of sensory input than the rest of the Enterprise does, but they weren’t automatically BFFs by default. I liked that complexity.
Also, there is a side story involving Geordi’s visor. Physicians onboard say that they can give him eye implants, but it is a one-way surgery. If it doesn’t work, he can’t go back to the visor. The physician is a little pushy – “Why wouldn’t anyone want normal eyesight?” – but in the end, Geordi says that he has to think about it because it would mean giving up a lot. I thought that this was a metaphor for cochlear implants, and I liked its subtlety. Because Geordi is a recurring character, it’s easier to explain these issues in terms of someone that the viewer already “knows,” rather than starting from scratch by introducing the concept of Deaf culture and explaining why it is important.
Once introductions are complete, Picard prepares to brief Riva on the mission. As it turns out, Riva feels so confident in his abilities as a diplomat that he requires very little information and walks out of the room before Picard officially adjourns the meeting. The fact that Riva has some personal flaws – arrogance – shows that he is a human being with flaws, rather than this super-perfect ideal Deaf person. Personally, I feel pressured as a smart Deaf person to put on a good face, but the writers of Star Trek understand that, instead of representing the entire Deaf community, Riva is an individual who happens to be Deaf. I liked that.
Also, I like the fact that a Deaf character was specifically skilled in interpersonal communications. In this society, a lot of people assume that you have to be hearing to deal with interpersonal conflicts, but I don’t think that that’s true at all. In fact, Riva himself discusses this point when he dines with Counselor Troi. They are initially accompanied by Riva’s warrior/libido chorus member, but halfway through the dinner, Riva sends him away. He slowly introduces signs to Troi, waiting for her to understand individual words and gradually creating sentences. He explains that that words are not the most important thing in communication: what lies beneath is more important. I liked this because it demonstrated that the human brain is the most important sense organ of all: we may perceive the world in different ways, but it doesn’t matter because our ability to fill in the blanks is key.
A note: Riva signs in American Sign Language. I found this to be totally hilarious and it did break my suspension of disbelief for a moment. An alien from a far-away civilization thousands of years in the future signs ASL? Give me a break. It’s especially irksome because hearing people assume that the entire world has one sign language. But then I thought about it some more and I realized that it’s equally implausible that the crew of the Enterprise speaks modern English. And, as it turns out, this episode does discuss the existence of different sign languages. More on that shortly.
The episode takes a definite turn when Riva, his chorus, Worf, and Riker beam down to the planet to begin negotiations. Before they can begin, a rebel kills all three of Riva’s chorus members, forcing everyone else to beam up to the Enterprise. Needless to say, Riva is incredibly distraught. Like I said, I think his relationship to his chorus was much more intense than a typical interpreter/client relationship, so I think that that was a factor, but the episode focuses on the fact that Riva can no longer communicate as easily as he did before.
In the absence of his chorus, Riva signs to the crew of the Enterprise. What he says isn’t subtitled, but he rants about the unfairness of the situation. Picard tells him to calm down, then directs Data to figure out what sign language Riva uses and to learn it. Data finds that there are thousands of sign languages in the entire universe, narrows down the list to five possibilities, and learns all five of them. He then demonstrates sentence structure of an alien sign language to Picard. At this point, my concerns about the representation of ASL as a stand-in for all signed languages dissolved.
With the help of Data, Riva is able to communicate more easily, but it isn’t a cure-all. He points out that, since Data is an android, he won’t be able to convey the nuances in Riva’s tone. This, in turn, could compromise his role as a diplomat. I liked the fact that the writers recognized this: one of the most important roles of an interpreter in real life is to convey intention as well as literal meaning. Distraught, Riva asks the Enterprise to take him home because he does not feel that he can complete his job.
In an effort to get Riva to stay, Counselor Troi sits down with him and asks him how he usually does his job, and Riva answers, “I look for disadvantages that I can turn into advantages.” Troi says, well, why don’t you do that? Riva then has an eureka moment and asks to be beamed back down to the planet to begin negotiations again.
They assemble an away team, and, once on the planet, Riva tells them to leave. They ask Riva how he will communicate with the people of the planet, and he explains that he will teach the aliens how to sign. They point out that it took Data only minutes to learn sign language, but it will take months for others to learn – a tidbit that I appreciated, because it shows that sign language is as complex of a language as any other. Riva says that that’s the point; by learning sign language, the aliens will be forced to learn how to communicate with one another. This, in turn, will give them the tools to resolve their disputes.
So, in the end of the episode, Deafness turns out to be 100% positive asset. I think it’s a really great reminder for Deaf people that, although some of us may rely a lot on interpreters to interact with the Hearing world, they are not everything. Plus, the actor is Deaf. It was really, really, really refreshing for me to see this positive portrayal of Deafness in Sci-Fi- instead of imagining a brave new world in which everyone is ‘cured,’ we learn that diversity endures thousands of years from now. And, rather than being a disability, it enriches the lives of the universe.
-~-~-~
