National Association of the Deaf

TESTIMONY OF MARLEE MATLINvBEFORE THE FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSIONvFIELD HEARING ON NOVEMBER 6, 2009 WASHINGTON, DC

Good morning ladies and gentlemen.  My name is Marlee Matlin.  Let me first say I am honored to have the opportunity to appear before you today.  Thank you to Gallaudet University for your wonderful hospitality.  And thank you to the National Association of the Deaf and Purple Communications for making my trip here today possible.  Most importantly, thank you to all of you – students, faculty and community members who came today to show your support.

Though many of you may know me by the many acting roles I have played – from “Children of a Lesser God” to my various TV appearances on shows like “Desperate Housewives,” “Law and Order SVU,” the “West Wing,” and most recently as the crazy lady who asked America to “read my hips” on ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars,” I am also a consumer and member of a very vibrant and rich cultural community.  I am deaf and one of 36 million Americans who are deaf or hard of hearing.

When I was seven years old, my mother took me to the International Center on Deafness and the Arts in suburban Chicago to help unlock my inner actress.  Despite becoming deaf at 18 months old, my parents were determined to treat me as any child should be treated:  with love and respect.  And despite what doctors had predicted for me, in my parents’ minds nothing would ever be denied me.  So when it became evident that their little girl wanted to be an actress (I was born a ham) they took me to the Center where I found my true love – acting.  On the day of my first visit, I discovered they were putting on a production of the “Wizard of Oz.”  No sooner had I walked in that I insisted there was only one role for me:  “I’m Dorothy,” I declared.  That’s how much confidence and freedom my parents encouraged in me.  Needless to say, I got the lead role!

By the time I was 13, I had been acting in plays in sign and song throughout the Midwest.  One day at the Center, I was told that the most famous person in America – no, not President Carter – but the actor Henry Winkler, known worldwide as the Fonz on “Happy Days,” was paying a visit.  With that Matlin determination and independence in me, I went right up to him and I said, “Hi, I’m Marlee and I want to be an actor just like you in Hollywood.”  With equal determination, cultivated by Henry’s own experience with barriers growing up with dyslexia, Henry looked me straight in the eye and said in his coolest, most Fonzie-like voice, “Marlee, sweetheart, you can be whatever you want to be.  Just follow your heart and your dreams will come true.”

Eight years later I was standing on a stage in Hollywood accepting an Academy Award for Best Actress for my very first film.  But the moment that should have been victorious was actually bittersweet. The morning after I had won the Oscar, a very famous film critic proclaimed that my victory the night before was the result of a pity vote.  And he went on to say, because I was a deaf person in a deaf role, which lent doubts to whether I was really acting.  In other words, I didn’t deserve the Oscar.  Never in my life did I feel so limited, so “handicapped.”

Fortunately, it was Henry Winkler who helped me get back on the right path encouraging me with the same words he told me when I was 13 – no one or nothing should ever stand in the way of my dreams.  But this time he also said I had an Academy Award in my hand to prove it.

Two years later, with that determination to stand equally with my peers in the entertainment field in my heart, I lobbied and succeeded in getting the film which inspired me to become an actress, the “Wizard of Oz,” closed captioned for the first time.  The following year, in 1990, I took it one step further and I worked with Gallaudet’s own National Center for Law and the Deaf to come to Capitol Hill to lobby on behalf of legislation that required all televisions with screens 13” or larger to be equipped with closed captioning technology.  Like the critics who doubted my ability as an actor who was deaf, placing me on a level below my hearing peers, the TV manufacturers and programmers resisted in providing equal access for millions of Americans who were deaf and hard of hearing.  But with hard work and determination, we were successful in getting the caption decoder bill passed.  Six years later, legislation was passed to require that broadcast television be fully closed captioned.  For 36 million Americans who for so long were left out of the mainstream when it came to broadcast TV, we were finally able to get the words hearing people all take for granted for our world.

Just last month, the “Wizard of Oz” celebrated a magnificent milestone – its 70th anniversary.  Now, for the first time in broadcast history, the film was being streamed live by Netflix to every single American who had access to a computer – for free.  I was eager to share the film with my children, particularly my five-year-old daughter in whose eyes I saw the same wonderment and excitement as I had when I was seven, watching the story of the young girl from Kansas who had dreams that took her over the rainbow.  But when I opened up my laptop and hit the play button, I was horrified to find that the film I had successfully lobbied to get closed captioned 20 years ago was being shown without captions.  I was told the technology was “coming” and that I had to be “patient and wait.”

Well as you’ve heard from my brief history, I don’t take things lying down and I did some investigating.  First, I made noise on Twitter to the nearly 28,000 followers I had and then I made sure my friends, like Ashton Kutcher who has over three million followers on Twitter, did as well.  Eventually I found out that there was actually no problem in the technology.  In fact, the technology exists to stream content with closed captions.  What it came down to was the same issue I encountered 20 years ago – a lack of understanding and a lack of will and desire by broadcasters, content providers and equipment manufacturers to provide full access by passing through closed captions for programming already captioned.
Today, if I open any computer and go to websites like ABC.com, Hulu, iTunes, or anyone that broadcasts content that has previously been broadcast on television with closed captions, I and millions of Americans like me would find that the captions are not there.  I couldn’t even watch myself on “Dancing with the Stars” being rebroadcast on ABC.com!  The same would be true for Emmy award winning shows like “30 Rock” and “Mad Men.”  Even more distressing is not being able to get captions on emergency and live events that are shown on TV with captions but streamed on the Internet without captions.  Nowhere was this more glaring than during the unveiling ceremony of the Helen Keller statue in the Capitol rotunda, which was streamed live on CNN.  For that event, there was not one closed caption to be found.  The fact that it was an event to honor Helen Keller made it all the more painful for me.  Here was a woman who fought for equality and access nearly 100 years ago and whom I looked up to as a role model, and yet I was unable to share in the celebration of her life.  It was simply unacceptable.

So what can we do – together – to change this?  Just as I did 20 years ago, yesterday I lobbied on Capitol Hill along with the people from the National Association of the Deaf and Purple Communications, representing the Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology for H.R. 3101 – to help ensure that the standards and legislation we won for access to broadcast TV, as well as telecommunications two decades ago, are maintained.  It is simply a matter of making sure that access reflects the changing landscape, which today includes broadband, the Internet, and wireless telephones and handheld devices, like iPhones, Blackberries and PDAs.  This is imperative because such technologies did not exist back then when we won our hard earned victory. 

In the end, it’s not really rocket science.  It’s simply about making sure that millions upon millions of Americans who are deaf, hard of hearing, or otherwise differently abled are not shut out because broadband service and Internet content is not accessible, not available, or not affordable.  As I said earlier, for whatever reason, it seems that all the hard work that we did 20 years ago has virtually disappeared when it comes to updating access standards for broadband and the Internet.  Imagine Neal Armstrong watching a re-broadcast 20 years later, in 1989, of his first steps on the moon, only to find his words which echoed across the globe, “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” were no longer there – erased, as if he had never been to the moon.  That’s how taking closed captions out of broadcast content now being shown on the Internet feels to millions of people like myself.

I’ve always maintained that though I may be deaf, silence is the last thing the world will ever hear from me.  I’ll be making noise every day, whether it’s on TV, in films or on social media sites like Twitter.

In the end, I hope you will listen with your hearts.  Remember that the real handicap of deafness does not lie in the ear; it lies in the mind.  Please help us ensure that the minds of those who choose not to provide closed captions do not handicap us.  Please help us ensure that they listen.

Finally, please help us ensure that the hard fought victory we won so many years ago can move forward into the 21st century.

Thank you very much for allowing me to speak and thank you for your time and interest.