Saturday Night Live would have generally used it’s opening sketch in the last episode before the election to take on the campaign trail, but in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, another story was making headlines, and that was the enthusiastic sign language interpreter of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
However, deaf actress Marlee Matlin was not very amused by the sketch.
She took to her Twitter.com page to write a series of posts, starting with; “Millions of deaf people use sign (language). Why poke fun/fake it? Poke fun at ME but not the language.”
She added, “Sign is not mime; it is a legit language. That’s why I developed an App #MarleeSigns to teach it. As I’ve said, I don’t mind fun poked at me, as I poke back. But at the language, that millions use? It feels childish and insulting.
“Here’s my point. Deaf people HAVE a sense of humor… But faking signs that we use isn’t the same. Imagine if a show started making fun of Spanish (using fake Spanish) or Japanese. Do you think they’d actually get away with it? Uh, no…
“The jokes about sign cold (sic) be funny if done right… Seinfeld, Family Guy, My Name is Earl WERE funny. This stuff is just dumb.”
Check out the skit below.
Too far?
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