Corporealities of deaf women in contemporary cinema: a cartography

Abstract

This article presents partial results of an ongoing doctoral research project that maps how the corporeality of deaf women is narrated in contemporary cinema, based on a cartographic approach inspired by Deleuze and Guattari. Four fictional films (Children of a Lesser God [1986], Beyond Silence [1996], The Bélier Family [2014], and CODA [2021]) and two documentaries (Sound and Fury [2000] and I Am Deaf and Didn’t Know It [2009]) were analyzed. The analysis identified molar lines that reinforce norms of silencing, dependence, and objectification, as well as a molecular line that outlines an identity-based discursivity around deafness. By taking deaf female corporeality as a matrix of experience, the study shows that, although some cinematic discourses suggest ruptures, they still tend to approach these existences in a partial and non-disruptive way. The resulting cartography reveals both the limits of predominant discursive formations and the openings for more complex narratives that consider deaf women as subjects of language, desire, and agency.