Deaf Actress Rose Ayling-Ellis: “I am disabled because I live and work in a world that gives me disability”

“My reality is not always pleasant,” Rose Ayling-Ellis said at the annual Alternative MacTaggart conference at the Edinburgh Television Festival on Friday.

deaf english actorEastEnders, dancing with the stars) offered his perspective on the harsh realities of life as a deaf working in television in a 30-minute speech and interview with journalist and producer Afua Hirsch.

“It’s not good when my access is compromised. It’s not pleasant to realize that my presence is a sign. It’s not nice when my favorite TV show doesn’t have subtitles. It’s not good to feel frustrated and not heard,” Ayling-Ellis said. “However, let me clarify one thing, it’s not frustrating to be deaf. Being deaf is my proudest identity. Disability is not a barrier. I am disabled because I live and work in a world that gives me disabilities.”

He also announced, “I’m tired of being a symbolically deaf character. I believe that diverse, rich and fascinating deaf stories are ready to go mainstream, and we can do it together. “

He went on to exhort people to go beyond ignorance. “I learned that I expect people to do the bare minimum and hold me accountable for making a difference in my community, and that is very exhausting,” she said. “I don’t know if anyone will listen to me. … What I do know is that people with disabilities shouldn’t be responsible for ridding non-disabled people of their ignorance.”

Deaf by birth, Ayling-Ellis, 27, is a British Sign Language activist. Last year, he was the first deaf contestant in the BBC’s hit dance competition. Strictly come to dance And he won with his professional partner Giovanni Perni. Her silent dance in an episode of the show won BAFTA TV Awards as a must-see.

The actor also expressed concern about the conversation on Friday. “Let me stop. Do you know what I’m doing now? I do what I always feel I should do, make sure I’m happy, positive and easy to work with,” she said. “I’m careful, as always, to explain myself politely, because I have a constant fear that if I dare my anger, I will be considered difficult, hardworking, and I will be. Replaced by someone who is not deaf. I present to you the version of me that I want you to see, where I am grateful for everything that has happened and I am grateful for all the opportunities that have been given to me. But the reality is it’s been a constant struggle, I’ve had to overcome a lot of obstacles to get where I am. It’s been a lonely and emotional journey and a moment of triumph. Strictly It was an amazing experience, I don’t need to hide the difficulties I’ve been through so far.”

Ayling-Ellis encouraged broadcasters and streamers to annotate all of their content. “The BBC is required to have 100 percent subtitles, but ITV and Channel 4 are only required to have 90 percent subtitles, and the other channels even less, only 80 percent,” he said. “On-demand captioning, whether capture or streaming, is currently unregulated. because? What is the explanation for this? When asked, the response from Ofcom (media regulator) was that regulatory decisions are made based on access and audience size and sometimes technical difficulties. Research shows that closed captioning users have increased tremendously. Viewers aged between 18 and 25 say they use subtitles in whole or in part. Netflix claims that 80% of its members use subtitles at least once a month. There is a growing market that uses closed captioning, so it makes no sense to make your programming inaccessible, not just for the deaf, but for the market at large.

The actor also asked creatives on Friday to take a closer look at working with deaf creatives. For one of her first theatrical productions, she was “playing a non-disabled role” and “the director wanted me to present her as a deaf character who could communicate in sign language,” she recalls. “From the beginning, there was a lack of knowledge of the deaf culture and the BSL. They didn’t spend extra time during rehearsals to incorporate BSL into the script, and the director expected me to teach the other actors how to sign.”

Noting that the first historical mention of the BSL was in 1576, Ayling-Ellis said on Friday: “Throughout its long and complicated history, the BSL has been oppressed, ridiculed and sponsored by the people who listened and enough. It deserves to be treated with the same respect as any language, and it’s certainly not something you can master in a few tries. Sorry about the waffle, did I say BSL users are expressive?

The actor said that “deaf people are used to feeling left out and underappreciated,” referring to a recent email asking him to “rewrite dialogue for a deaf actor playing a deaf role,” which read, “We struggle. Finding a deaf actor who could handle the physical demands of the character, so we ended up choosing a physically fit actor for the role. […] We were incredibly respectful and avoided imitating the actor as we talked.”

Ayling-Ellis said she was not at all impressed with him. “There’s a lot wrong with that. “First, ‘hearing impaired’ is an offensive term, a quick Google will tell you that, and ‘able’ is not used here,” he said at the Edinburgh festival. “Am I to believe it was impossible to find a single deaf person among the 87,000 BSL users in the UK who could fill this role?” When are we going to move on to this? I tried to find out how difficult it is to hire deaf actors. I started by asking (link) Equity how many deaf actors are registered and while they say they would love to get this data, they don’t. Simply put, the industry does not regulate this data. An estimated 11 million people in the UK are deaf or hard of hearing, but only 201 actors are represented in Spotlight (a casting resource). Of these 201, only 56 use BSL.”

Changing that will not be easy, Ayling-Ellis emphasized. “Before I had an agent, I tried to apply to be a Spotlight member and was turned down several times. I was turned down for one of three reasons: I didn’t have an agent, I didn’t go to drama school, or I didn’t have enough experience. But here’s the thing, the agent didn’t hire me because he didn’t think I would have enough work; I couldn’t get into drama school because it was inaccessible; And I didn’t have enough experience because there aren’t enough articles written for the deaf. How can a young deaf actor get in when the door is firmly closed from the start?

Ayling-Ellis ended her speech with another call. “The frustration evident in my speech is something I’ve lived with all my life; I’m used to it,” he said. “False promises have become the norm for me and I often underestimate and deny how much I can take.” He continued, “I hope that by sharing my thoughts and feelings, I encourage you to think about how you can improve. the experience of deaf people when they are hired. We are no longer ready to be their inspiration on screen.”

The actor concluded, “If you’re going to take one thing from this speech, please don’t stop working with the deaf, that’s the last thing we want to happen. It’s okay to make mistakes, we all do. If we don’t make mistakes, how can we learn? But please don’t take the easy way out by simply checking the box. Let’s work together, we want to work together. … Let’s work together to normalize deaf and disabled people on screen. I can only dream of the day when it’s not weird to see other people with disabilities on screen or not get excited to see other people with disabilities working behind the screen.”

After recently announcing his retirement East Enders, The actor is expected to join the cast for the next season. a doctor who of the following showrunner Russell T Davies and the new presenter Nkuti Gatua on social media.

In Edinburgh, an international industry initiative called the TV Access Project (TAP) was launched. Led by BBC Content Director Charlotte Moore, it aims to address accessibility issues across the television industry. The BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Sky, Britbox International, Disney+ UK, Paramount, Amazon’s Prime Video and UKTV are all registered with TAP, which is supported by the commercial producer entity Pact and the Creative Diversity Network (CDN).