Matlin tackles life’s challenges feet-first
M arlee Matlin has been preparing her entire life for “Dancing With the Stars.”
“I’m always up for a challenge. It’s what my life has been about,” the actress said in a recent interview conducted via e-mail.
“I wouldn’t be where I am today if I didn’t have the drive to overcome the barriers that I’ve encountered in my life. This show is just an extension of my desire to never let any barriers get in my way.”
The Academy Award-winning actress is having a busy month. In addition to the ABC dance competition, Matlin also stars as Laura Miller in the Hallmark film “Sweet Nothing in My Ear” (Sunday at 9 p.m. on WBZ, Ch. 4). Laura and her husband Dan (Jeff Daniels) struggle to decide whether to give their deaf son cochlear implants.
“It’s a story in which the debate over cochlear implants serves as a metaphor for the communication barriers we all face whether we are deaf or hearing,” said Matlin, who lost her hearing when she was 18 months old. “I found it one of the few (projects) that featured deaf characters that were fully fleshed out and didn’t treat deafness as a device to create drama. It also got the facts right and presented the cochlear implant debate from both sides without advocating either. I loved that.”
The implant issue has been divisive in the deaf community. Where does Matlin stand?
“I don’t think it would be responsible of me to put out an opinion of a medical procedure that is so controversial. . . . The controversy comes about because for so many years deaf people have felt repressed and discriminated against and viewed as merely hearing-deficient people when there is a rich culture and language there within the deaf community.
“When a technology comes along that promises to cure deafness, it only serves to reinforce the view that deaf people are handicapped when, in reality, they have productive lives. A cochlear implant is a decision that should be left to the family or the individual and when doctors or speech advocates get involved, it creates controversy. No one should ever tell another person how to live their lives.”
Tags: daniels, jeff
prez4life yeah!
Only in the Shakespeare version. Caeser’s last words to Brutus were in Greek: Kai su, teknon, meaning “You too, my child.”
Please god someone emulate Brutus!!!!
People liked Bush because he was “principled” and stubborn too. It took a lot of people 6 years to realize that doesn’t make up for being wrong.
It’s gone!
According to SourceWatch and Right Web, Family Security Matters purports to speak for “security moms” but is actually an arm of the Center for Security Policy. Their phone numbers were once identical.And who is the CSP? Their advisors are a who’s who of the neocons… Douglas J. Feith (”the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth”), Richard Perle, even Laura Mylroie (proponent of a harebrained theory that Iraq was behind the 1990s WTC bombing). And all your favorites!
Yeah but you aren’t including the 5,500,000 votes that were stolen by electronic voting machines, or denied to poor (mostly black) people. So in each election BUSH LOST!!
He’d gasp, “I’m a gonna call you ‘Stabby’!”
Well, half of the people who vote.
I see a lot of (FOXNews) in that list… unsurprisingly.
ha, nicely played, there. . .
One sick cookie for sure.
You can’t say that, or else you end up sounding just like this guy. To him, the Arabs are just a bunch of fucktards too.
Everyone may not believe in his Libertarian ideals, but you have to look at where we are at and where we need to be. We are on the verge of a fascist state. The federal government has WAY too much power right now. 8 years of Ron Paul would hopefully pare that down to a somewhat reasonable level (probably about where we were 30 years ago). From there we could let the traditional politicians fuck things up for a while longer.If we already lived in a balanced government, I wouldn’t back Ron Paul. But for the government we have, he’s the only solution.