Review: Deaf President Now! Documentary
Heads up: The following is a review of the new documentary Deaf President Now! available to stream today on Apple+. Given that the events of this film took place over thirty years ago, I’m not sure the language of “spoilers” fits here, but if you don’t like reading reviews until after you watch the movie, maybe save this email for later?
Anyway, onward!
Deaf President Now!, covers the week-long student-led protests at Gallaudet University in March 1988. The protest—including a student encampment that shut down campus and several marches to the Capitol—was the result of the Board’s selection of a hearing candidate over two deaf ones, the inciting incident in a long history of oppression of the deaf within education, employment, and society at large.
Four student leaders emerged that week: Greg Hlibok, Tim Rarus, Bridgetta Bourne, and Jerry Covell, now known as the DPN4. Students locked down campus and made four demands: that the incoming president Dr. Zinser would resign and be replaced with a deaf president, Board chair Jane Spillman would resign, the Board be repopulated to be at least 51% deaf, and that there be no reprisals against protestors. By the eighth day, they’d secured all four, and had become a shining beacon for disabled self-determination across the world. The film, co-directed by Nyle DiMarco and David Guggenheim, won the Audience Favorite award at SxSW this season.
It has always been the case that whenever I see any and all deaf representation, I’m excited. This has been true of pretty much all my encounters with deaf characters and stories on screen or in text, even when incomplete (see: CODA, The Sound of Metal), iffy (remember Switched at Birth?) or downright bad (see: big feelings about The Heart is a Lonely Hunter).
Deaf President Now! was no exception, and I felt myself quickly kicking into automatic hype-man mode. There is much to celebrate, and in watching the documentary, I found joy in the prospect of deaf history reaching a larger audience, and particularly deaf people having a hand in telling the story. I got teary at moments, feeling the power of the community. Even though I didn’t attend Gallaudet as a student, I nevertheless feel its undeniable pull as a cultural and historical hub for our community when I set foot on campus, and it is maybe the first time I’ve seen that feeling captured on film. I was also really happy to learn that half the film's crew was also deaf; this is a huge rarity in Hollywood, where most of the time we can't even get deaf roles played by deaf actors.
At its height, the film does what all good documentaries do—make you feel nervous and excited about what will happen next, even when you know the outcome. The editing is deft, splicing present-day interviews with the DPN4 and the school’s first deaf president, Dr. I. King Jordan, seamlessly with the footage of the week’s events. The access to so much of that footage is also another clear benefit of the film.
As a deaf viewer familiar not only with the story, but also with what it’s like to live as a deaf person in a hearing world, I will be interested to see whether laypeople are able to discern the stakes of this struggle from the film's onset. Some of the DPN4’s backstories do take on this work, but much of that expansion happens in the film’s second act. I suspect many viewers will be able to absorb and integrate that information, while others might have benefitted from a more frontloaded and direct, “hey, XYZ things were bad for deaf people!” at the top of the film. (Interestingly, things were also patchy at Gallaudet at the time, with hearing staff and faculty often unable to communicate fluently with students, something that, had it been mentioned, might have further crystalized the need for deaf leadership.)
To some degree, this is an issue with the film’s generative material, not its crafting. Focusing on the DPN4 inherently creates gaps in representation, and in Deaf President Now! we receive a narrow view of events. In the deaf world, deaf people who come from multigenerational deaf families are sometimes known as DoD (deaf-of-deaf) or the “deaf elite.” Having access to signed language from birth means they are not at risk of language deprivation and have stronger family and community connections, which leads to better educational access, and so forth.
For example, incoming student president Greg Hlibok’s brother had been a Gallaudet graduate and was also involved with a fringe movement within the National Association of the Deaf that provided funding and guidance to the movement. Tim, the outgoing president, had connections and face time with the Board and its President, Jane Spilman, having been in meetings with them during the initial winnowing of Presidential candidates.
I have previously compared the deaf-of-deaf experience as something akin to generational wealth, where instead of money the currency is language itself, and I think the film makes that privilege visible, though without interrogating it. The DPN4’s backgrounds are a big part of why they were equipped and in positions to lead in the first place, but theirs is not representative of the average deaf experience, 90% of whom are born into hearing families. It also leaves out a big part of what makes the deaf community unique--the intersectional nature of deafness. What’s more, the DPN movement, like any successful protest, was successful not only because of them but because of its size and broader momentum—not only among students and the community, but in the way it captured national attention and support.
By film’s end, the protest has reached a satisfying conclusion, and even if the narrative transformation for our individual protagonists is less-than-radical, the impact that the DPN protests had on future disability rights legislation is undeniable. For hearing audiences who have either no desire or ability to parse out the gradients of deafhood, the experience will be novel, feel-good, and empowering.
But there are also questions left unanswered, and perhaps more egregiously, some left unasked. The choice to speak exclusively to the DPN4 provides a tight lens on the week’s events, leaving out both student contributors to the movement, as well as the contextualization of the movement within the broader scope of the political landscape. In the beginning, the interview subjects are asked what they thought of one another at the onset of the movement, and when the men are asked about Bridgetta, some make derisive comments about what they consider to be her over-the-top displays of feminism. It’s something I hoped (expected) they’d return to at the end of the film—perhaps asking the Four what they learned about one another, or how they saw solidarity across movements, but the criticism is left unexamined.
Then there is the concerning absence of BIPOC perspectives, both within and outside the deaf community. There is a moment where the documentary feels open to this conversation, as interviewees make comparisons to the civil rights movement, but neither the importance of the movement as foundational to their cause, nor the irony of missing Black and POC voices from within protest leadership, is covered, leaving the invocation of civil rights sounding appropriative instead.
There is mention of the outside guidance provided by the NAD, but not from the National Black Deaf Advocates. And among students themselves, there were of course many essential players over the course of the week, but leaving out key BIPOC organizers like Hector Brual, Kubby Rashid, and particularly Yoon Lee—the student photographer who captured many of the iconic photos used in press coverage during the campus lockdown—feels like a grave oversight. In both choosing not to feature students of color who did serve vital roles in this protest, and failing to examine the barriers to participation others experienced, viewers ultimately receive a whitewashed version of the week's events and the community. This is a shortcoming of the film, especially regarding an institution with a long history of segregation and racism.
Acknowledgement of the moral and material support provided by hearing labor and civil rights organizers is also largely missing from the film. In knowing the story of DPN well, I expected a climactic moment to be Friday’s march to the Capitol, which was led by students carrying the original “We Still Have a Dream” banner used by marchers advocating for a MLK Jr. national holiday, leant to the students from the Crispus Attucks Museum. But this is never even shown, nor is the US Postal Workers’ Union President’s address (and presentation of a check) later that day. Moreover, the insular, white and legacy-deaf-centered angle also feels like a missed opportunity to highlight what made DPN so exceptional: so rarely do disabled people experience solidarity from outside groups, and finally deaf rights were receiving widespread attention.
I asked co-director Nyle DiMarco about the choice to keep such a tight lens on the DPN4, especially at the expense of highlighting both students of color and outside organizational involvement, and he said the decision was a difficult choice that stemmed from the need to make the film accessible to hearing audiences unfamiliar with the history. “One of the hardest jobs as a co-director was tightening the story to the Four, because I have so many favorite stories and I know so many key players that contributed to the protest significantly. But that would mean a limited series (which I would’ve loved!). Ultimately, we wanted to tell a focused, character-driven story inside that one-week frame, that would keep the emotional weight/stakes/narrative more digestible for hearing audiences, since we’re already introducing a lot of new information. By centering the DPN4, we are able to take the audience on an emotional ride. It’s my hope that the film is a starting point, and [we can] continue to expand the lens.”
As with all marginalized folks, it’s undeniable that there is pressure for deaf writers and filmmakers to water things down so they are deemed uncomplicated for mainstream sales--it's certainly a pressure I encountered while working on True Biz, and always a concern that comes up when we try to pitch a film or TV version. For obvious financial and statistical reasons, it makes sense the documentarians (and their producers) have chosen to shape their work for a hearing demographic.
But. The fear that featuring a more diverse array of participant perspectives might cloud the emotional resonance of this film isn’t true. It’s time for those with the power to create (within the deaf community, and in the film world at large) to move past the impulse to handle our white and hearing audiences with kid gloves, offering up only and what they think they are equipped to handle, and expand the boundaries of deaf art that allows for the truth of our histories and communities—intersectional, multifaceted, messy, plagued by systemic white supremacy as ever nook and cranny of our nation is, and in all of that, fully human.
These days, new storm clouds hang overhead at Gallaudet. Department of Education personnel and funding cuts have rocked business-as-usual, and layoffs and the suspension of various majors has already begun on campus, even as leadership continues to be dishonest about the university’s standing in light of the government’s implementation of Project 2025.
And that’s to say nothing of more sweeping dangers, like RFK Jr’s eugenicist agenda against disabled people, impending cuts to Medicaid, a White House hostile to ASL interpretation despite being sued (and losing) for failure to provide it in their previous administration, cuts to the deaf scientist grant pipeline, targets on IDEA funding several lawsuits attacking ADA and Section 504 before the nation’s highest courts, and on and on. There are glimmers, on campus, of the fighting spirit that once made a small student protest into a national movement, but we’re not there yet. Never have we needed the scrappy, inventive spirit of DPN more, on campus at Gallaudet and beyond. But change will take all of us, as it always has, and without a diverse multiracial and dis+abled coalition, we are destined to burn out.
Further reading
For more on white supremacy in the deaf community and the erasure of Black deaf signers, I highly recommend David Player's article here.
For a weekly update on threats to the deaf and disabled community posed by the current administration, including those mentioned above, please check out the Disability Rights Watch site, or follow on Instagram and BlueSky.