In Deaf President Now!, Nyle DiMarco and Academy Award-winning director Davis Guggenheim join forces to tell a milestone in the education of the deaf community. In 1988, at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C, the first and only deaf people’s university in the world, students gathered to protest. The board of trustees appointed the only hearing candidate among three options, Elisabeth Zinser, as the University president. Students felt it was time to change and have the first-ever deaf president. However, the board chairwoman, Jane Spilman, became the personification of an enemy to the whole student body. Besides her inability to sign and consequently comprehend the difficulties of the community, she stated that deaf people were not ready to function in a hearing world. It ignited a highly motivated protest unity, and the students would fight hard to take down Zinser and the board.
In this sense, the directors bring the four vital members of this movement: Bridgetta Bourne, Greg Hillbok, Jerry Covell, and Tim Rarus, the most vocal individuals representing the students on the campus. The directors combine their telling of those four days of protesting with the prosperous archival footage from the era. Their civil rights manifestations would occur in an era in which television was popular, and newspapers and magazines had a massive audience. The media coverage would spread their demand through the country, and support would come in donations, letters, and statements to the American Congress. Therefore, contextualization develops on the timing and how it would corroborate their achievement. The time was up. After one hundred and thirty years, it was time to finally have a president who could understand their necessities and capabilities.
Hence, the student organization would be crucial in negotiating their requests. The first one is the deaf president and Zinser’s resignation. The second one is Spilman’s resignation from the chairwoman role. Thirdly, the board consists of fifty-one percent deaf members. Finally, the last demand was no reprisals against students and staff participating in the protests. Those negotiations would take place over four days, during which the students would use aggressive persuasion tactics. Jerry Covell, the most emotional and radical member, would design actions to confront and force the board to negotiate with them. For example, he would coordinate the locking of all the campus entrances to prevent the board and its employees from entering their offices. Furthermore, they would also organize to avoid Zinser’s visitation on the campus by lying on the ground to force the helicopter pilot not to land. Their measures would circulate in the media and gather public support.
Consequently, the film thrives when it focuses on the most revolutionary aspects of the Deaf President Now (DPN) movement. Even though it leans toward tired exercises of demonstrating the rebellious organization, such as using Public Enemy’s Fight the Power as the soundtrack to a montage. The best illustration of people’s organization is the emotional and reactive personality of Covell, who criticized the diplomacy of their leader, Greg Hillbok, as someone who would be too spineless against the powerful. Accordingly, Covell also relieves the film of the methodical and traditional talking head structure through a catharsis sign and the enthusiasm of narrating a crucial piece of civil rights history. The signing allows the film to escape from the tiring direct conversation with the camera. Therefore, the division within the principal group is a fascinating element of an often hygienized approach to a revolution that changed the rights of deaf people.
Another aspect within the thesis construction is the transformation of I. King Jordan, as the first deaf president, and his change from a regular professor in the university to the result of DPN. He explains his journey to understand the cruciality of having a deaf person in the leadership role, hence, as the symbol of a four-day battle between students and the trustees of a private institution. However, the discussion of the exposition and the reactions to his positions are not as engaging as the vigorous telling of Bourne, Covell, and Rarus. It lacks the profundity to expand its discourse and represent I. King Jordan, as the first deaf leader in one hundred and thirty years. Thus, it culminates in an abrupt ending sequence that feels incomplete from a textual point of view. It resumes the conquering of rights and their demands. It is not cohesive with the archival richness and its interviews.
Nyle DiMarco and Davis Guggenheim document a crucial unknown civil rights protest in Deaf President Now!. It is an often dense and vigorous narration of a revolution heard from the signing of its leader and catalysts. It lacks a cohesive sense and a less abrupt ending. Still, it documents a monumental moment of the student movement, delivering a historical document in film form to a grandiose effort.
Deaf President Now! is available to watch on Apple TV+.
Learn more about the film at the Apple TV+ site for the title.
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