I’m caught between a rock and a hard place about this CNN article from this recent Monday about how technology is “helping blind, deaf enjoy movies.”

On one hand, far be it from me to disparage applauding the progress we’ve made in the last few years in gaining access to movie theaters. Yes, it’s true: I have to drive half an hour for a very limited selection of movies for a very limited choice of showtimes. But still, now, more than ever before, I can drag the significant other to the theaters and get my movie fix. That alone thrills me to no end, despite its downside.

On the other, however, seeing this news item pop up on the front page of CNN all of a sudden has disconcerting effects. For one thing, my knee-jerk reaction was and still is: this is news? Okay, sure, people need to know about it in order to lobby on its behalf, but, honestly, have you people been living under a rock? Way to catch up on the happenings in the everyday world.

One thing that really irks me is that the article starts off with a pandering tone: wow, look at all the things we’re doing to help disabled people live with us. They couldn’t do this stuff before, and now, thanks to our smarts, technology, and a lawsuit, we can.

It’s amazing no one has commented on the irony yet. First, it isn’t that “able” people are helping “disabled” people assimilate. Rather, it’s that the “ablies” excommunicated deafies in the 1920s when they decided to introduce talkies and completely forego silents. Thus another event in a long string of building an exclusive society.

Sure, I’m pulling the rug out under my own feet — one of my favorite things about theaters is the sound system. Same goes, I’m sure, for many other people with a hearing loss who nonetheless still enjoy what they can hear or feel. And that argument doesn’t quite fly for blind people. As I have no expertise in that area, though, I’ll leave it for someone else to comment on. But my point stands, nonetheless.

The second part of the wham-bam irony is that this is only happening as a result of a lawsuit.

Rejoice with me, all ye faithful, but remember where the fruits of our labor come from: hard-fought lobbying and visits to courtrooms and lawyer’s offices. I’ve written my share of letters and e-mails, but I’ve never heard of accomodations being offered as a result of these. Most often, the judicial system has to strongarm a company into playing nice. The movie accessibility thing is no exception.

The best (and most truthful) thing about the CNN article, in my opinion, is this quote: “‘Movies are an important part of popular culture,’ said New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. ‘Every adult and child should be able to enjoy a film with family and friends, especially during the holiday season.’”

This especially rang true.

I’ve just emerged especially bitter from a string of family events where me and my little deaf family were excluded from experiences with my extended (and hearing) family. First, we bought tickets online to the open captioned showing of Harry Potter at Rockville Regal. I was careful enough to call beforehand and confirm that our show would be open captioned. It was an absolutely thrilling prospect. I’ve spent twenty-five years in a family of culturephiles, but I’ve never been able to go to the movies with the people I grew up with. We arrived, settled in, and found out the hard way that the person I spoke to over the phone had given me the wrong information and the captioned show had started an hour earlier.

Then we headed to Williamsburg for the Thanksgiving holiday, with the same family members. My mother had been working diligently with the interpreter services at the foundation for more than a month to make sure we would have an interpreter at several special events we would be attending. Two days before we left, the interpreter coordinator said something about the costs being $100 being an hour. Red flags! Eventually they figured out that the people there had misunderstood my mother. Even though my mother requested an ASL interpreter, they assumed we wanted a historical interpreter. My ass. What does a family with a three year old need with a historical interpreter?

As I read over the e-mails between my mother and the coordinator, I couldn’t believe the ignorance. My mother made countless references to, “since this show is mostly music, my daughter and her family won’t use the interpreter that much, but for that one, since there’s a lot of talking…” We did get an interpreter for one event, but even she was woefully unqualified, and we spent the evening reinterpreting from English to ASL for my daughter. Needless to say, Thanksgiving with my daughter’s aunt and uncle and Marmee and Gramps turned into just another weekend with the ‘rents.

Then, just last week, my brother performed in a high school play in his first lead. I was absolutely thrilled for him — all three of us siblings have fallen in love with the theatre, and for me as the oldest, I like to think I’ve had something to do with it. We requested an interpreter two months beforehand, and I arranged for a sitter.

Not four hours before the show, we find out that the person my brother had put in a request with hadn’t had a clue what to do with an interpreter request and ended up telling my brother that all the interpreters in the county were booked so we would not have one. I canceled the sitter, my hubby stayed home, and I went, and with the help of a script and a flashlight, barely managed to sit through my l’il bro’s leading man debut. He did fantastically, but I was still fuming about the whole thing afterwards.

And this is in Montgomery County, which is supposed to be among the cream of the crop in the country for these kinds of things.

And now I get to read an article on CNN.com about the wonderful technological advances that are making our lives better for us. Sure, they’re an improvement. But they’re a lawsuit-forced effort in a society that clearly doesn’t want to go the extra step to earn our money and input if it can help it.

I’ll never forget the shock I felt when I learned the documentary film about deaf percussionist Evelyn Glennie would not be offered captioned or subtitled in the theaters. Naturally, we deafies are drawn to movies where we see our peers (even though Evelyn doesn’t sign and claims to “read lips perfectly”). It’s a heady narcissism to see ourselves reflected in the media that most often likes to exclude us or pigeonhole us. (The same thing is happening now, as I anxiously anticipate finding out captioned showtimes for The Family Stone so I can see deaf actor Ty Giordano later this month. I will seriously throw a hissy fit if no captioned shows are available.)

For those of you who didn’t hear about it, this was the distributor’s response to one deaf theater-goer’s inquiry: “Thanks so much for your interest. I’m sorry, but it will not. We made the decision not to subtitle the prints for two reasons: the visual aspect of the film is as important as the aural, and the director felt (and we agreed) that the subtitles would be hurtful; and because much of the movie deals with sounds that subtitles cannot deal with. Since the film will be available in closed caption format when it is released on DVD, we settled for that as the way to go, though we know we are disappointing some people, such as yourself, for which we truly are sorry.”

You may view the theater patron’s commentary in full here.

So yes, even though the article on CNN.com’s front page was entirely deserving of the few pixels it occupied, even us deafies living in DC, which is practically as close to a Deaf utopia as you can get, we know the truth: this world still has a long way to go.

In other words, when I can spontaneously go see a movie with my mother without knowing that a lawsuit paved my way there, that’ll be really cool.

EDIT (December 12): The article was written by Michael Gormley of the Associated Press and was, in fact, released December 4. I have forwarded a link to this blog to the AP. If a miracle occurs and I receive a response, I hope to share it with y’all.