Oscar-Winner CODA and Deaf Representation in Film — Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #130

The 2022 Oscar win­ner for Best Pic­ture was CODA, a sto­ry about a musi­cal­ly inclined girl with a deaf fam­i­ly. Kam­bri Crews, her­self a CODA and author of a much dark­er sto­ry about this called Burn Down the Ground, joins your Pret­ty Much Pop host Mark Lin­sen­may­er, writer Sarahlyn Bruck, and jack-of-many-intel­lec­tu­al-trades Al Bak­er to talk about how deaf cul­ture inter­acts with film.

Films tend to show deaf­ness as trag­ic, which is not nec­es­sar­i­ly how the deaf com­mu­ni­ty views them­selves. We talk about bal­anc­ing the demands of a sto­ry, how real life works, and the need for pos­i­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion. Also, deaf bowl­ing!

In addi­tion to CODA, we talk about The Sound of Met­al, A Qui­et Place, Chil­dren of a Less­er God, Mr. Hol­land’s Opus, See No Evil Hear No Evil, Eter­nals, Dri­ve My Car, and more.

Note that this dis­cus­sion was record­ed in May but got bumped with all the shows wrap­ping up at that time and sum­mer movies launch­ing.

If you liked this, see our pre­vi­ous episode on dis­abil­i­ty rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

Hear more Pret­ty Much Pop. Sup­port the show at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by choos­ing a paid sub­scrip­tion through Apple Pod­casts. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts.