The Hammer

For the ASL movie requirement I chose to watch the movie, The Hammer. I was ecstatic when I saw that we were allowed to watch this movie for this assignment. I had watched it once before a few years ago in high school and ever since then it was my favorite movie. It is a perfect split between a love story and a motivational movie. I loved it even more the second time I watched it.

I believe that the movie appropriately portrays some of the struggles many young deaf individuals experience. Although i cannot speak from experience it is how i could imagine some problems would occur for someone who is deaf. For example i recall learning that not all families are accepting of the fact that their child is deaf. The grandfather not believing in the son (Matt) to be intelligent is something i imagine many deaf people face. Not everybody understands that being deaf does not stop you from doing the things you want to do. At a young age Matt was challenged by his very own family. His grandfather forcing him to speak and not use sign is very common especially during the time asl was not fully an accepted language. A lot of deaf individuals were forced to take language disability classes to learn how to lip read and how to speak for themselves. Just like in the movie, deaf children were often placed in the class with the children with disabilities such as down syndrome or another mental disability that was nothing like being deaf. Often being deaf is looked at as a inhibiting disability.