Thesis
“You ain’t heard nothin’ yet!”: audio description, spectatorship, and histories of access in American cinema and media cultures
University of Iowa
Master of Arts (MA), University of Iowa
Spring 2022
DOI: 10.17077/etd.006380
Abstract
The cinema has long been understood as a site in which the disabled body is designated as the object, rather than the subject of spectacle. This is especially the case with regard to Blind and vision-impaired individuals, whose complex relationship to vision is often thought to exclude them from the position of spectator. Audio Description (AD) is a technology that “translates” onscreen events into a narrative audio track. Used to make audiovisual programs and performances accessible to Blind and vision-impaired audiences, it is typically thought to be a relatively recent invention, its presence figured by most histories as coinciding with the heightened attention to disability rights that occurred with the activism of the 1960s and 70s.
This paper contends that AD’s cinematic genesis can be traced to a much earlier date, locating numerous instances of its use in theatre, film, and radio throughout the early- to mid-twentieth century. In doing so, it asserts not only that blind and vision-impaired people were participants in media consumption – particularly cinema – spectatorship, but also that such technologies of access have long been present, largely due to the advocacy of disabled people themselves. The exclusion of disabled people from cinemagoing practices is thus the product of implicitly ableist configurations of and developments within the medium which make such accessibility measure necessary. Moreover, accessibility itself is not an uncontested category, but brings with it a number of additional concerns about the kind of spectatorial body presupposed by technologies of access as well as the media they supplement.
Rather than a marginal technology of access, I contend that AD use and disabled spectatorship are essential aspects of both the media text and of media history more broadly. Only with the acknowledgment of disabled people not simply as spectacle but as spectators can Cinema Studies begin to dismantle the ableist frameworks that structure mainstream conceptualizations of the medium.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- “You ain’t heard nothin’ yet!”: audio description, spectatorship, and histories of access in American cinema and media cultures
- Creators
- Katherine Anne Avery
- Contributors
- Naomi Greyser (Advisor)Christopher Goetz (Committee Member)Kembrew McLeod (Committee Member)Thomas Oates (Committee Member)Mathew Swiatlowski (Committee Member)
- Resource Type
- Thesis
- Degree Awarded
- Master of Arts (MA), University of Iowa
- Degree in
- American Studies
- Date degree season
- Spring 2022
- DOI
- 10.17077/etd.006380
- Publisher
- University of Iowa
- Number of pages
- ix, 73 pages
- Copyright
- Copyright 2022 Katherine Anne Avery
- Language
- English
- Description illustrations
- illustrations (some color)
- Description bibliographic
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 66-73).
- Public Abstract (ETD)
- Audio Description (AD) is a technology that “translates” onscreen events into a narrative audio track. Used to make audiovisual programs and performances accessible to blind and vision-impaired audiences, it is typically thought to be absent from the so-called “visual medium” of American cinema until the late twentieth century, within the heightened visibility of disability rights activism in the 1960s and 70s. This paper finds that AD’s genesis can be traced to a much earlier date, and locates numerous instances of its use throughout the early- to mid-twentieth century. It also locates AD practice within not only cinema, but theatre and radio as well, highlighting the multimedia potential of AD as a technique and a technology. In doing so, it asserts not only that blind and vision-impaired people have always been participants in cinema spectatorship and media consumption more broadly, and highlights the ways in which disabled audience worked to create these paths of access for themselves. Thus, the exclusion of disabled people from media consumption – and from cinemagoing practices in particular – is the product of implicitly ableist configurations of the medium. This exclusion has consistently been resisted and negotiated by those excluded from full participation in film spectatorship. Moreover, the need for accessibility is not accidental, but is rather the product of a medium’s development along able-bodied norms and assumptions. Finally, accessibility itself is not monolithic, but brings its own set of presumptions into play, including the kinds of disabilities accommodated. Rather than a marginal technology of access, I contend that AD use and disabled spectatorship are essential aspects of both the cinematic text and of cinematic history. Only with the acknowledgment of disabled people not simply as spectacle but as spectators can Cinema Studies begin to dismantle the ableist frameworks that structure mainstream conceptualizations of the medium.
- Academic Unit
- American Studies
- Record Identifier
- 9984271153402771
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