In this post, Ocean discusses a music video that includes sign language in it, and asks readers to give their thoughts and opinions on the video, the signing, and the use of ASL as an “artistic form” in videos, etc.
Greetings, my readers!
I am on the mailing list of a spiritual organization that sends out periodical emails updating individuals about projects, happenings, etc. I recently received such an email, which included information about a music video that Kate (the creator of said organization) had recently watched:
If I Had One Prayer ~ A Special Gift to You
A couple of weeks ago, someone sent me a link to an online music video. Because of time constraints I rarely follow such links, but the title of this one intrigued me enough that I decided to check it out.
A few minutes later, the touching lyrics, music and strong message wrapped with the context of this beautiful presentation created by internationally known musician and singer Karl Anthony and his wife Jeanne, who interprets Karl’s powerful and positive lyrics with American Sign Language – along with the precious presence of their little goddaughter Shivanni – had so moved me to tears that I knew I must share this heartwarming work with you. My one prayer is that it touches you as it has touched me.
Below is a copy of the video for your own viewing:
I have to be honest with you, folks. I had a whole long-winded rambling post all typed up and ready to publish here… sharing my own thoughts and opinions about this video.
But I stopped.
I decided to use a different approach. Taking a cue from Joey Baer, I’m asking my readers now…
What do YOU think?
What are your opinions about the inclusion of ASL in this video? Do you think it’s a good idea, or just a waste? Do you feel honored that these individuals are using our language in this video to show its beauty and share it with the world, or does this make you feel offended… a sense that they are (even if unintentional) insulting the Deaf Community and its language?
What about the signing itself? Good or bad? Can you understand it? Does it make you enjoy the video more?
What are your feelings about people who do use sign language in videos, etc. in this manner? Should we accept it, or speak up and say something? Do we need to be educating the hearing world about these sorts of matters, or just shrug our shoulders and recognize that they “will never get it?”
What about Kate and her statements about finding this video “touching” and being “moved to tears” and finding the little girl to be “precious?” Is this overdoing it and in fact is this attitude more of a problem than the video itself?
Is it really worth our time and energy to even worry about or be discussing things like this, or should we focus on more important issues, such as Deaf Education, Accessibility, etc.?
Sorry! I’m asking too many questions here, right? But this video has really stirred up my curiosity to find out what other members of the Deaf Community think.
Sooo…what do you think? What should we do? What should we say?
I’d love to get your feedback on this, and then after reading your comments, I will post my own thoughts and opinions later this week!
Thanks!
For continued discussion on this video, check out these posts:
This sculpture shows the sign for "connect"...and that is what Deaf Pagan Crossroads is all about - making connections. Connections between Deafhood and Paganism, connections between the Deaf Community and the Hearing Community, connections between myself as the writer and you as the reader. I hope you will take the time to read my various posts, some of which are listed below. Welcome to the Crossroads, and I hope you make some connections here!
Deaf Pagan Crossroads 
When I watched the video streaming, I quickly became disinterested and did not finish viewing it. I am sure that the video was mostly for the hearing audience, not for the deaf audience. If the two pics of the singer and the signer remain the same all the way, instead of alternating, I’d be able to view it completely. Or have it captioned… either way. It also shows that whoever created the video did not have a whole picture of the deaf culture, like accessibility, but in the learning mode.
The signer was not competely in ASL either… I had a little hard time reading her signs, with lack of mouth movements and no direct eye contact… made me feel disconnected…
That is about it….
Well… I am a hearing person who is studying ASL currently, so I took a different approach to the video. I too lost interest, and was confused by the signing. I turned my volume off to see how much of the video I could get soley from the signs, thinking that MAYBE I would get some good comprehension practice out of it… I didn’t even make it 1/2 way through the video. I then turned the volume back on to try to figure out what the heck I had missed! I still could not get all the way through the video!
The song is pretty, but not phenomenal in any sense, and the use of sign plays only a minor part in the video iteself. I am assuming, based on the lyrics, that the intent was to show some sort of representation of acceptance of people’s differences in prayer for world peace.
Culturally and linguistically, I was confused as to why there would be a signer on the music video for only short clips instead of side-by-side viewing of the singer and signer, and/or captioning throughout the video.
I sat here with a big ‘F’ wiggling on my forehead for this one.
Hey there,
Her ASL is pretty good, it’s theatre ASL. It shows shes comfortable with it, that is always good. There’s a slight little thing–ASL is being performed on a sountrack based on sounds and lyrics based on English syntax. Yep, it’s a nice visual addition…
This kind of thing isn’t unusual. Multi-lingual songs. Ricky Martin did that. “Je voudrais coucher avec toi ce soir.” This happens a lot. It does little or nothing to increase the public’s awareness of a language, unfortunately.
Am I offended? Uhmm, I don’t know. To be honest, in this day and age, where bad publicity is as credible as any publicity, I don’t know how to appropriately react. What I am impressed with is this:
This guy did his research.
I think we should congratulate the singer in his efforts. A music video is a sure-fire way to get inside the majority’s homes, etc. The talkies are getting exposed. Key word here–exposure! I guess this lessens our burden of having to expose people to ASL THEN teach them the details that come with it..
After that point, it’s our responsibility to ensure that the exposed peoples are progressing on the right track into understanding ASL and the Deaf community.
That’s my two cents,
Ben Vess
When I turned off the volume, I too had to struggle to finish the entire clip. I thought her ASL was beautiful and poetic, really.
When I turned the volume on, I really enjoyed listening to the song.
I understood better when the singer was visible to me – could understand most of her words (I couldn’t do this with the volume off – maybe one or two words by lipreading).
In my humble opinion, her ASL tone is an attempt to match the singer’s tone. I thought that was well – but musicmama could argue otherwise! 😀
My CI is not of that a normal hearing person – it’s just a tool I’m using so don’t hold my words against me!
But ASL was beautiful in this video and unfortunately, it’s NOT for us deaf auidence, but for the hearing audience to admire. Deaf people would not be able to follow through this song at all soley on ASL itself with the way it’s been edited in this video.
I don’t think we should feel offended at all.
You could write a note to them and let them know that there are interested deaf people who would like to have full access to the song by not clipping the ASL person off.
It’s hard, really – because they want to emphasize the meaning of the song with the little girl passing out the prayer tokens to people.
How do you put ASL through that? You’d have to remove the little girl in the picture, I guess…
The sound on my PC has somehow disappeared, so this video was totally inaccessible to me, as I don’t know ASL and cannot lipread (I am a hearing person). So captions would have been good. Maybe you could submit it to that captioning service you blogged about a while back, Ocean?
There doesn’t seem to be much info about the intentions of the people who made the video – but I would have thought it would be more difficult to read the signing when viewed from the side like that, and I also noticed that the signer wasn’t on screen the whole time, which made me suspect she was there more to look “graceful” than to actually communicate anything.
The tone of the email from the spiritual organisation was the thing that offended me, as that seemed more patronising. I imagine if you are Deaf, you don’t want people to be “touched” by you or your circumstances, you just want to be treated like anyone else (e.g. that the rest of us don’t adopt a special tone of voice when talking about you…)
Incidentally, if someone had called me “precious” as a child, I’d have vomited on their shoes. And isn’t it a bit exploitative having kids in music videos?
I suppose, as Yvonne suggests, I could submit this video to Project readOn for captioning.
But I guess I am a little puzzled as to why the creators of this video would utilize the language of the Deaf Community in it, and then fail to consider the possibility of captioning it so that members of said community would in fact have full access to the lyrics.
For me.. I enjoyed watch little india girl give token to everyone more than ASL signer. because hard to understand the concept of song. the video by edited was excellent job.
I was smiling to see places because they are in Balboa Park that part of San Diego, CA.!
This is an ahh shucks, tear-jerker video. The signing gal (she’s hot) is merely a prop (that happens often) and I see that she doesn’t quite follow the lyrics to the letter, but reinforcing the artistic and sentimental imaginary in the song. The viewing audience doesn’t know the difference, but what counts is the premise of the song. If that encourages some to learn ASL, so be it. I don’t do songs like this; I like to rock out. 🙂 Everyone has their own choices of listening to music. Making a music video is a huge challenge and gamble. What you see isn’t necessarily what you envision when you listen to the song. I rather listen to the records and float on my own interpretations.
As a hearing person, I watched and though the words had the right idea I was a little on guard because I felt the whole video was a bit too… manipulative, I guess. The song, the images, the sign language, it was all sort of part of this package. That was my feeling. It was meant to touch the heart, and it was a little to obvious in that approach, from the cute little girl to the words. I guess I was asking myself, ‘Did this touch on anything real, any truth, did it enlighten?’ and what I felt was that the creators were saying ‘Look how loving and holy and inclusive we are’ rather than conveying something of value to me.
I don’t like the video. People would get upset if we just trilled out foreign words in a music video, just cause it sounded pretty. If they’re going to be inclusive, then go the full throttle… Show the woman the whole time and make sure her signing is clear.
I consider myself pretty much a native ASL user, and I could only understand 3/4ths of what she was saying. Facial expressions are a huge component of ASL, and this woman had minimal facial expressions. And I could pick up on the fact that the woman was hearing. This was not a deaf person signing, imho.
And I have to agree with whitisrabbit… the video just smacks of manipulation. Kinda left me with an icky feeling, really.
The signing itself is done well. I fail to find the video interesting though, because it’s oriented to people who can hear the video.
Am I offended? Not by the video itself, per se, although it sounds like Ocean had additional text accompanying the video that came across as patronizing.
I don’t think the video itself is patronizing…but it’s schmaltzy as hell 🙂 I don’t really do schmaltz, however much I might agree with the message 🙂
I agree with other comments, if it’s really meant to reach out to deaf communities as well…then caption the portions that aren’t signed. I’m sure there’s a nice, readable, scroll-y sort of font that would work out there 😉
Nice video… it would be alot better if signing stays on the video all through… i understand the concept of song even with a few signs… otherwise it would be worthless…
thank for sharing.
h
As a CODA and RID certified interpreter who is also loves music, I have to say I didn’t care much for this video.
I came away from it thinking “what’s the point?”
Wanting to use ASL for a music video is a nice thought, but if you’re going to do so, then do it in a manner that respects its first and foremost purpose – as the language utilized by the Deaf Community. Here I get the feeling it’s not being used so much as a language as it is as an art form.
As one who grew up using ASL to communicate with my parents, my other Deaf family members, and with our Deaf friends… and now earn my living helping to facilitate communication through my knowledge of such a language, I have a bit of a problem with how its being conveyed in this video.
The video itself and its message isn’t a bad one, per se. But I think the message could be just as effective without having to exploit our language to get your point across.
*sigh*
Yay to your experience and all, but honestly, whatever.
It does come off as kind of demeaning and conscending when people have that reaction upon seeing ASL. They see it as something “special” and “beautiful”, “pure”..
People do not not realize it, but that manner can be very patronizing. I keep thinking of a comparative experience, such as back in the ole days in the South, theere were those wealthy white ladies. They would spend their time raising money for causes. One of theri favorites would be for the “little colored children”. they would go down to the orphange or whatever it, and cluck over how lovely they all are, aren’t they just so darling?
But then one of those children are older, and they ask for something – such as equal access to the job, and it all goes back to, “How dare they! We gave them those little dollies then they were little! So uppity of them!”
I’m not saying that it’s the exact same parallel that happens today, but I see it all too often. They love sign language, they take classes, aww all over how cute it is, but the moment they have a deaf child, it’s put in the implants and keep them away from the deaf militant people who want to steal them and isolate them from me.
Or it’s like, “you want me to pay WHAT for an interpreter? Well, the job isn’t available after all..”
The fact is that ASL is the liveblood of a lot of people, and ASL needs to be respected for that, not just because it’s pretty or because it kicks in the “cute little disabled kid” pity reflex.
That aside, I’m glad your friend enjoyed the video. Really.
p.s. I forgot to add. I found it boring. It can be so funny sometimes how a non-signer will think something is so beautiful, while signers go, eww, that was bad.
I viewed the Video and it was alright. I was not impress with it as it could have been better. On the scale of ten, that was about a three.
I do not want you to feel that I do not care for ASL in music but this just didn’t impress me enough.
By all means, I really do want musical with ASL. But it gotta be mind-blowing feelings while listening and watching sync/unison movements with signings, etc.
Remember that Sweden video about the girl being confused and worried about her child to have CI?, I was very impress with the sound of the song singing and it was in Deafread.com several months ago.
The idea of having music with ASL is very important but must be done right and have no “plastic” or signs of amateur skills.
This would make the hearing society to come about the acceptance and understanding of the Deaf Culture.
John F. Egbert
I can tell the video gives off an invaluable message about praying for those who hate (from reading the title) but as far as I can get, I cannot understand exactly the lyrics that are not made accessible to the deaf audience as we have to “guess”. Actually, I feel like I am looking at the video through a kaleidoscope..everything is so colorful and pretty but it becomes a blur because the message is not completely shown in ASL and that the signer is not using ASL grammatical features such as non-manual signals, eye gazing, etc. Like Ben said, it is based on theatrical type of signs but it is nothing wrong with that. But what is wrong is that it is not clear for us to comprehend the whole message.
Offended? At least the singer is making an effort to include the signer so that is where the credit is; however, not to include accessibility all the way is cruel. It is like dangling a pinwheel lollipop in front of the toddler that it looks so colorful and delicious but she cannot have it.
We don’t know what the lyrics are all about so we find ourselves in the position to use our imagination but not having the opportunity to taste the real thing is simply not so cool.
p.p.s.
doesn’t anyone see the irony here? “Let’s include some signs to enchance the music for hearing people! But hey, let’s not add captions, or a transcript because we didn’t even bother to think that deaf people would need them.”
Like, hello!
Whitsrabbit
I bow to your perfect summary.
“‘Did this touch on anything real, any truth, did it enlighten?’ and what I felt was that the creators were saying ‘Look how loving and holy and inclusive we are’ rather than conveying something of value to me.”
YES!
I don’t think there is anything wrong in listening with your heart… some of us need to learn to do that more often. But I do believe one needs to find that balance between mind and heart – and that isn’t always so easy.
For me, the message of the video itself is not necessarily a bad one, and there are aspects of the video that can be enjoyable.
However, I also do think there are aspects of the video that could use significant improvement, and the message could be delivered in a better, more positive manner that would be more respectful of the Deaf Community and our language.
For me, it was a pretty video and if I took it in that vein then it was a piece of art. However, being hard of hearing, in making an effort to at least make sense of what I was seeing-I felt cheated in that the theatrical got in the way of the ASL (In my opinion). I have seen ASL set to music and it was much clearer than what I saw, maybe it was the quality of the recording-I don’t know, but I felt the ASL was more dance/theatrical than it was message.
WOW!
A lot of various responses here, reflecting various thoughts in regards to this video.
I want to thank everyone who posted a comment and shared your opinions. They were very helpful in allowing me to see what other members of the Deaf Community thought about this video.
I will be posting my own thoughts later this week. Be looking for it in the next few days!
Again, many thanks… and feel free to come back and visit here at the Crossroads again!
Blessings,
Ocean
I felt using ASL in this video was a two-fold goal. One, using ASL as they did was a marketing ploy, not really one of wanting to communicate the songs lyrics to the deaf community. The other was a way for the artist to incorporate his wife into his video. While the video may be visually pleasing to those who do not depend on ASL to understand the lyrics, those of us who do only got half the message.
The attempt was nice, but the message failed.
The music and vocals were absolutely beautiful. I wish they had used a deaf performer, or at least a consultant to work with their project. They could do a much better product in the future. I sincerely hope they continue to explore the possibilities!
I thought using sign language in the video was an awesome idea! It’s really beautiful to watch, and it makes me want to take a class and learn it myself.
Isn’t that a good thing? I mean, if hearing people see this video and see the signing and think like me that they want to learn sign language, then that can’t be bad, right?
With all due respect, Kristen…
I teach ASL classes and have taught in an Interpreter Training Program (ITP) in the past. While I’m aware that people take such classes for a wide variety of reasons, I would much prefer that they be doing so because they met some Deaf people and want to learn to communicate in their language…
NOT because they saw some music video and were inspired to run out and sign up for a class because they think “ASL looks so pretty!”
[…] my recent post on “Putting ASL Upon a Pedestal” I asked my readers to share their thoughts regarding the music video I had recently received in an […]
Kristen,
the sentiments you shared with us were your best intentions. But you do realize that us ASL teachers become very frustrated sometimes. We so often have people show up for our ASL classes, because it’s “pretty”, and then when they discover it really is a lot of work and it takes time to learn, they don’t want to try anymore. They just want to learn the “pretty” signs to show to their friends and sign to a song or something. I have lots of problems with that, especially since I teach High School. Sometimes girls are like, “this is boring. why can’t i learn the fun signs?” or “why are you having us do this? what does this have to do with ASL?” (when they have to do grammar or drill exercises), or even, “why can’t I sign it the way I want to? I like it better that way” (responding to me when I explain to them what they did was ungrammatical or inaccurate).
ARGH.
And second, Kristem, I know you do not realize this, but the woman’s signing SUCKS. She did a bad job. What is “pretty” to you is twisted, half-breed manging of a language. If someone went on TV and tried to speak Spanish but mangled it up, Spanish people would be a little upset if someone was like, “ooh, it sounds pretty. I want to learn it.”
UGH.
This Deafie, that is ME, would rather see a decent rock song being signed. Enough of this lovey dovey crap! Gimme Devil Gate Drive, Highway To Hell, Back In Black, Tear Me Apart, The Wild One….. then we’ll see how good their signing is.
[…] ASL in a music video – the “One Prayer” video featuring Karl and Jeanne Anthony. In my ASL On a Pedestal post, I asked my readers to give their views on this video and what they thought about the […]
[…] “Is This Putting ASL On a Pedestal?” […]
Honestly, I lost total interest half was through the video. What was the point of the ASL to be included if it wasn’t there the entire time. To me it makes no sense. I will concede in saying the ASL is a beautiful language, but it is a language that should be treated with respect. I don’t understand how some people upon seeing something like this can go up and sign up for a class. For me it was that I had alway been interested in it since introduced to the alphabet and that my best friend is HOH and I wanted to communicate with her better.
[…] What Do You Think? Is This Putting ASL On a Pedestal? Got Mead??? […]