Marlee Matlin unveiled her new reality TV show My Deaf Family on YouTube this week after failing to sell it to a TV network.
Of course, everyone in the deaf community is competing to see who can kiss Marlee’s backside most fervently, assuring her that the show is the greatest thing since sliced bread and the TV execs are nuts — NUTS!! — to pass on such a wonderful, wonderful show.
That will do wonders for Marlee’s ego, but it won’t make the show any better. Marlee told the Los Angeles Times that network execs “loved” the show, but if that were true, why did they all turn it down? If it were that great, someone would have picked it up. If it even showed potential, someone would have taken a chance and tried to make it better.
Upon watching it for the first time, it was painfully apparent to me why it was rejected. I’ve watched it a few more times and compiled the following list of 10 ways that Marlee’s people could fix the show so that it could be resubmitted and have a better chance of success.
1. Make it run the correct amount of time, around 22 minutes. It’s supposed to be a pilot and it’s only 9 minutes long. How is that supposed to fit in a half-hour time slot? Frankly, I’m skeptical that they can come up with enough ideas to fill a full season and here they can’t even fill up the first episode!
2. Add titles at the beginning and credits at the end. The show jumps right in with no indication of what it is, and ends the same way. It looks sloppy and half-baked without titles and credits, which is only something that every other TV show in existence has. And by the way, when the family finishes signing “My Deaf Family” at the start of the show, it kind of looks like they’re all giving us the finger.
3. Make better use of Marlee Matlin. It was bizarre when suddenly Marlee showed up a third of the way through the program, asking the dad a question that made no sense: “What was your parents’ reaction?” Huh? What? Where did she come from? No worries, she was soon gone, but not before she registered shock — SHOCK!! — that dad didn’t learn sign language until middle school. What’s so odd about that? She was later glimpsed in the school bleachers and at the very end she popped up with the family posing outside their home. They need to decide if she is a part of the show or not. If so, she should do it right and forget the silly cameos.
4. Teach Bridgetta Firl how to smile. She was deadly serious, earnest and humorless throughout the entire program. Who wants to watch that? When she talks of how deafness is a gift and how her life is so rich, her entire face looks botoxed. Aren’t deaf people supposed to be expressive? Her husband didn’t make much of an impression, either. Deaf can be fun and funny, but these people came across as deathly dull. And that’s too bad because there are some really wacky characters in the deaf world.
5. Who are these people anyway? This is the pilot and it’s supposed to set up the premise of the show, yet we are left clueless as to what the parents do in life. Work? Hobbies? Anything? I read in the LA Times that the Firls both work for the California School for the Deaf, Fremont. Oh, how exciting. A deaf couple who work at the deaf school. Never heard that one before ….
6. Is Jared going to sit there and whine about his parents in every show? It got tiresome even before this first episode was over. At one point, he says the deaf community “is just like a unity of suffering.” Umm .. what?
7. DO SOMETHING! The family seems to sit around a lot talking and signing about deaf deaf deaf. At one point, when Jared is eating pizza with his friends, they suddenly cut to him saying, “I think the worst thing is when people openly show pity.” Where did that come from?? They can’t just talk about these things, they have to get out there and show it happening. Go somewhere and show us the people showing the pity, even if it has to be staged a little, just like they do on every other reality show.
8. Get a better editor. The show was choppy, as if the scenes were written on index cards and then thrown in the air. There were so many things that didn’t make sense, like when a car pulls into the driveway and then no one shows up inside. And there were entirely too many times when the dialogue had nothing to do with what we were seeing on screen. Toward the end we had to choose between watching little Sabrina fingerspell “I love you a lot” or following dad’s off-screen musings on “deafhood and blackhood and womanhood.”
9. TV needs excitement and conflict, but the biggest conflict in this episode was about cinnamon rolls. Reality shows are heavily scripted but this show seemed to forget to set anything up. At one point it seems there might be a problem with Jared’s friend Kris, who never comes over to visit, but then he shows up and is quickly forgotten. It feels like they set up the story line for nothing. Same as when they show Gideon playing basketball with his friends in the street, and nothing comes of it. Or when they go to a school basketball game and the most exciting thing is when someone makes a basket.
10. Create a bible for the entire first season. Maybe Marlee already did this, but I doubt it. The suits are going to want to know what these people will be doing over the course of an entire season. God help us if they plan to continue sitting around saying/signing “woe is us.” This family has to get out of the house and get into some weird and interesting situations. Marlee and her people need to map this all out in great detail if they hope to convince a network exec to bite.
Ultimately “My Deaf Family” has promise, but it can’t be all about the deafness. The deaf thing has to be an undercurrent to other, more interesting things. Most viewers won’t be able to relate to being deaf, so give them something they can relate to. Show the family doing the same things that hearing people do, though with unique challenges. (Trying to order at a drive-through is an obvious example.) Show how things are the same, yet different.
If it’s going to be all deaf, all the time, no one is going to tune in to watch, or listen.
I heard back from Marlee’s camp and the gist of it is that I don’t know what I’m talking about because I’m not a Hollywood muckety muck and if I’m so smart, why don’t I make my own TV shows?
The longer version of their message, relayed by the producer, is that this was not meant to be a pilot, it was a “sizzle reel.” By industry standards, this is what is expected. You only have a short time to pitch your idea and the execs want to see film, though not a whole show. You have to show the characters raw and not set up anything unusual as you don’t want to misrepresent them. To make a whole show as I suggested would cost $100,000 and who wants to pay that much on speculation, especially when you don’t know how to slant it for a particular network. Marlee chose a successful producer to do this project and he says this presentation is par for the course. I guess that means that the project was turned down on its own merits. I think it is because this one family is not enough to hang your hat on. They are just too ordinary. Mom opines on deaf stuff and dad nods in agreement and son says “Aren’t they weird?” and the other kids are just there. This 9-minute glimpse did not providing compelling evidence that this family would prove worthy of the rapt attention that would come with a reality show. Next Week: Dad Buys Milk! Find a different family, or better yet an interweaving of different families that are “touched by deaf.”
Uh oh, I’ve just been unfriended on Facebook by Marlee’s interpreter/business partner Jack Jason for posting the above two comments. That is weird because I would think they would be glad that I corrected myself and gave their side of the story. Oh well, Hollywood folk!
The “sizzle reel” thing came to mind when you called the presentation a pilot. I guess one can’t really know how well Marlee’s sizzle compares to other sizzles. But if others do go through the trouble of implementing your 10 suggestions, then Marlee’s work is indeed sub par. Can’t be sure without the benefit of seeing other sizzles.
Your suggestions make a lot of sense to me and the way you present them is very palatable.
I just have a question…do you know anything about the deaf community or deaf people?
@ Megan. Yes, I do. Do you have a point?
what you wrote about just doesn’t make any sense..but hey, everyones entitled to their own opinion.
@ Megan … What a brilliant critique.
Tom – Good critique and thanks for spending the time on it. It looks like the Matlin camp can’t take criticism very well. I agree that a reality show would be better portraying deafness as a challenging undercurrent and not as the sole focal point, to attract mainstream viewers. There are deaf people rolling out some quality work in film, such as Charlie Swinbourne http://www.youtube.com/user/charlieswinbourne#p/a/u/0/K3ai5IVfFdE so perhaps a good deaf themed show will appear one day.
obviously this was not a full episode. I do not work in television and could figure that out. I thought that was assumed. As I see you did correct yourself but still, c’mon, did you really think that was a full episode??? So that takes care of 1, 2 and 8.
What is so shocking about not learning sign language until middle school??? Can you imagine trying to learn how to talk without ever hearing a word?? He was stripped of communication! your comment was ignorant. Please admit it and do some research… Im a hearing person and could understand how horrible that is. I do agree that they should have been shown out in public with different challanges, but im sure it will get to that. I have to agree with most comments im reading on the internet… If “Little People, Big World” did well… so can this show. Hopefully you will take some time to do some research about deaf culture and television before speaking. Good luck in your search.
John ..
You’re a little late to the party, eh?
The issue of whether it’s a pilot or an episode or a sizzle reel has been long settled.
I know plenty of deaf people who didn’t learn sign language until later in life, including myself, who learned it in college. It’s not the least bit unusual.
Research deaf culture? I was editor of the school newspaper at the National Technical Institute of the Deaf 30 years ago and have worked mostly deaf-related jobs since graduating. What is your background?
Bottom line, they picked the wrong family for this show. They came across as dull and humorless. Those in Hollywood who passed on the show could clearly see that it had no place to go.
Well, I guess you have the answers to everything.
I don’t have the answers to everything but I had some suggestions to improve this show.
Thanks for adding so much to the discussion.
I agree that it seemed choppy. I like the concept, but it does seem lacking a little. You’re right, there’s no conflict. I don’t watch a lot of reality TV, so I’m not claiming to have credible suggestions, but I think an interesting factor would be to have them host a hearing person who has not really been exposed to deaf people that much so that a wider audience will see through this person (and the family) what kind of daily struggles deaf people have to deal with. At the very least, we should follow the family in the basic routine of an ordinary day in chronological order and see how it differs from that of a hearing family’s day. What is it like when you ask for help finding something in a store, when you want to order something off menu at a restaurant or make substitutions to your order, when you are approached by someone asking for directions? What kind of responses do deaf people get versus hearing people? Communication is such a huge part of humanity and the obstacles that some people have to face are, unfortunately, not widely known.
Personally, I am not deaf, but I did marry into a Puerto Rican family and I don’t speak Spanish. I know a few sentences here and there and I’m trying to learn more every day, but when my husband’s family gets together I miss 80% of the conversations and I feel bad (and a little stupid) asking my husband “What did she say?” every 10 seconds. I know it’s not the same thing, but it’s my own personal obstacle. Learning a new language (especially as an adult) is very difficult. ASL is no different, it’s a language, and learning it takes time, patience, and practice. It’s too bad that this show didn’t make it, because the good thing about reality TV is that you can gain a respect for what some people have to face, whether it’s being deaf, or being 3 feet tall, or having 20 kids, etc.
Just my thoughts.