gayjamesmcgraw

The Shape of Water (2017) dir. Guillermo del Toro

misspider

The literally silent women protagonist leaves a super bad taste in my mouth.

ayalaatreides

She’s deaf and speaks with sign language, she’s not a silent woman. Like, can we agree that deaf representation in media is important? Can we agree that ASL representation in media is important? This is an adult-oriented romance/sci-fi movie where the female lead is a deaf woman. How can you act like this isn’t significant? The last gif has a deaf woman in the 60s standing up to an aggressive man and telling him to go fuck himself. 

This movie is doing something that has probably never been done before. But hey, she can’t talk “normally” like a hearing woman and that’s bad, so go off I guess.

kaylapocalypse

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

vampireapologist

yes but quick correction! I don’t believe she’s deaf! I think she is mute! Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t want people going in expecting one thing and being disappointed. This is still very important representation though!

aerefyr

they said in the trailer “she’s not deaf. she can hear you.” so yeah, while she isn’t deaf, she is mute, and it’s still important representation!!

scraps-is-busy

Del Toro loves metaphor and symbolism. So having a silent protagonist is right up his alley. And if you can’t see why it’s important just from the symbolism alone that the silenced underclass stands up against a man representing the systematic oppression of others, then I don’t know what can be done.