Tweeting disability: Sara Cox, disturbing hair, Cystic Fibrosis
| 14:53 UK time, Thursday, 21 July 2011
This week, Twitter's disability fraternity is mostly talking about deafness and communication.
Radio 1 DJ Sara Cox found herself in a bit of hot water with the deaf community this week when she Tweeted:
"How daft is this? I'm at flicks & bridesmaids is gonna have subtitles. I morphed into my dad & asked if we got any money off. If I was wearing specs I could've put a strip of black gaffer tape across the bottom to block them out."
There followed a barrage of angry Tweets from the deaf community, including Lianne Murphy's which was quoted in
"Uh-oh you're in trouble with the deaf-ies. We aren't to be messed with. Get some respect and realise how lucky you are to HEAR!"
and also ran the story, which sparked a conversation around a need for more subtitles in UK cinemas.
Sara Cox has since apologised, adding that sometimes her "random musings aren't thought through".
Elsewhere in the Twittersphere
The guy doing the signing on Ö÷²¥´óÐã News at the moment has very disturbing hair. I wonder if sign language users find it distracting.
For me I take a total communication approach. I sign, I speak, I lip
read and I use my hearing aid. I want to communicate to ALL people.
[Oscar-winning deaf actress]
People with CF should not hang out together, or sit together and do interviews. This is madness, although personal choice. #FRUSTRATION
a young Irish woman living with Cystic Fibrosis.
Comment number 1.
At 22nd Jul 2011, MM wrote:Hardly newsworthy really. Who is Sara Cox anyway ? an RADIO presenter, of course deaf are totally aware if that ! we don't know if there were ANY deaf in attendance either, if not then putting captions on was pointless. The biggest issue was deaf awareness failure again, we can understand an air head from radio with half an brain cell not to know what titles are for, but NOT The cinema manager who told her "The subtitles are for people who don't understand English very well..." Actually deaf people DO understand English very well, perhaps half of poland was in the audience or from wherever, we aren't informed..... Question: IF subtitles are for people with poor english, then why put english titling on ?" now that IS daft. Opportunist and pseudo deaf advocates (From TWITTER ? surely not !), made an literal mountain out of an molehill, and withheld depth from the story, as did here. She made a gaff apologised let's all get a life and move on.... She isn't the first to be unaware.
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