Say What?

In a TV show last week (which I believe is called "What About Brian?"--to which I would answer, "What about the 57 minutes of my life you just stole with this shitty show?"), a couple learned that their daughter was deaf (she is a toddler), mostly. Pretty standard plot twist, yeah, right?

Well, then the weirdest thing happened. The characters playing her parents proceeded to weep and gnash their teeth, rend their clothes and rage against the, uh, calcifying cocleas? Anyway, it was odd.

Why would anyone react that way to the rather mundane news that their child has, let's say, 90% hearing loss? Children get ear infections the way junkies get hepatitis C; many of them develop hearing loss--I'm pretty sure the pediatrician went over this with them during the pregnancy. Have these people never seen a deaf person? Did they never see "The Miracle Worker"? Do they know of sign language? Gallaudet University? Have they not noticed how incredibly deaf-friendly our society is?

The theory I woke up with today is this: the deafness lobby wrote that episode.

HEAR me out: by portraying deafness as the worst thing that could possibly befall the 3 year-old moppet, the deafies have forced viewers--incredibly dumb (ha ha!) as they are--to consider just how alien and tragic deafness can be. Thus, they have in fact reified what too many wanky scholars and other "feelers" now take for granted: that there is some different, special culture that inheres to those with hearing loss.

What is up with all the frigging references to deafness on TV this past year?