Deaf President Now! is a new documentary on Apple+ TV, directed by Nyle DiMarco and Davis Guggenheim.
The documentary showcases what happened in the true events of the civil rights movement. In March 1988, four students in particular led the entirety of Gallaudet into protesting for its first Deaf president, later helping the creation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA).
The documentary showcases clips of the protest itself as well as current interviews of the four leaders: Bridgetta Bourne-Firi, Jerry Covell, Greg Hilbok, and Tim Rarus. I. King Jordan, the Deaf man who would become Gallaudet’s new president, was also interviewed.
I recently got an opportunity to watch Deaf President Now during an ASL social. It was nice to finally be able to do so. So let’s talk about it!
First and foremost, the Deaf representation is obviously spot on. Nyle DiMarco himself is Deaf. You likely know him as the winner of America’s Next Top Model and Dancing with the Stars. His co-director, Davis, however, is hearing. But we don’t mind since Nyle is on the project and we trust that he got his final say in the matter of how things went.
From there, it’s hard not to get the representation right since you have all the people involved. It’s a bit hard to do that wrong when it’s a documentary interviewing the real life people in the movement. So A+ for that!
I will say I wasn’t the biggest fan of some of the camera work, mostly the framing during the interviews with the core four. Some of the signing would be out of frame. When I’m signing in my own videos, I try my best to make sure every second of my hands are in the frame. Of course, the documentary also has captions and voiceovers.
As a mainstreamed deaf person who had no access to ASL, the Deaf community and culture, etc., I had no idea that the DPN movement existed until I started learning about deaf history in my early 20s. I’ve read some books on it, but watching it go down on video is another experience.
At the social, there were also a few people that experienced the movement in person. One of them was a student at Gallaudet when it happened, so she got excited when she saw old familiar faces on the screen. After the documentary was over, we got to chat about it and ask her questions from her own point of view.
I really enjoyed Deaf President Now! I learned so much about the people, Gallaudet, and history. I grew up not knowing what my rights were in education and the world in general. I felt like I was back in my early 20s just starting to dip my toes into everything and then being absolutely shocked by everything I was missing out on, by everything that was being held from me.
Seeing the core four especially got me into my feelings. I felt like I was watching people I could finally look up to, like a child finally feeling safe for the first time.
It’s things like this that made me do what I do now, creating content and traveling to bring awareness to growing up mainstreamed with no access and no knowledge of my own rights, and making sure no other child grows up the same way that I did. I cried at the end of the film, and cried some more when people were giving their stories. I wanted to give my own experience, but ended up chickening out at the last minute.
If you’ve got Apple+ TV, I highly recommend watching this doc. I’d go as far as to say if you can get a free trial, do it. Or even just pay for one month just to watch this and then move on if you’d like. But this definitely deserves your time.
It inspired me to try to get back into writing my memoir again. I’ve always taken multiple attempts at it and never finished it, but when last year’s attempt went away due to a dead hard drive, I hadn’t gotten the motivation to try again. Seeing this changed that.
And that’s the power of our stories being told by our own people. While I don’t have the same experience as the DPN Core Four, as I never went to a Deaf school or university, I relate to them and look up to them for other reasons. It reminded me of the reasons why I do what I do now, have been doing this work for the last decade, and why I have so many other things that I want to do to try to make the world more accessible to us.
So maybe I should get started on that book again. And a TV show. Or a short film. Or YouTube videos. Something.
