Lipreading Mom

Today was a landmark day with the new cochlear implant. I went to the movies and understood dialogue without captions.

Seems unrealistic because I am deaf.

Leaving the theater, I asked my husband: “When was the last time you remember me enjoying a movie without captions?”

“About 28 years,” he said. We’ve been together 30 years.

Today’s movie was “Spinal Tap 2: The End Continues”, directed by Rob Reiner and starring Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer as the mockumentary band Spinal Tap making their comeback show in New Orleans. 

Going into seeing the movie, I knew there were a few things that could make dialogue difficult to understand with my profound hearing loss:

• Most of the characters have British accents.
• The characters tend to speak quickly, making it hard to lip read them.
• Loud music often plays in the background, making the lyrics to songs they sing difficult to understand.

Since today’s show wasn’t open captioned, I used a handheld closed captioning device that interprets dialogue, background sounds, and music lyrics.

I held the captioning device, as it is about palm-sized. As the movie began, I alternated watching the big screen and the tiny captioning screen. It’s very hard on the eyes to go from screen to screen.

Today I decided to give listening with my CI some practice and use the captioning device as a backup for any dialogue missed.

Here is some background on why I chose CI listening today. At the last hearing test a few weeks ago, my speech comprehension was tested wearing the cochlear implant. Prior to CI surgery, I correctly repeated seven percent of speech when tested. Wearing the cochlear implant and re-tested with the same words, my speech comprehension was 94 percent.

Back to today’s movie.

Spinal Tap 2 began with director Rob Reiner, pretending to be a director named Marty, interviewing the band members.

“I’m curious as to why you chose New Orleans,” Marty said.

Each Spinal Tap member answered with thick British accents. I got the captioning device ready as a backup for dialogue interpretation.

One of the band members, Derek Smalls, played by Harry Shearer, answered, “There was a cancellation, and … a date opened up at the arena”.

The ellipses I use in the last quote is what I didn’t hear the character say. The rest of the answer I clearly heard wearing my cochlear implant.

Other things I heard with the CI were many of the movie characters’ funny quips, spoken so quickly it was like a brain-processing marathon. I heard many of the band’s song lyrics. And, without any movie spoilers, I understood what two real-life British music artists said during their amusing cameos.

All in all, I would give the film a thumb up. I give two thumbs up to being able to hear most of the film with my CI.

At the movie, I wore a mauve shirt from the Etsy seller DEAFinitelywonderful. On the shirt are the words “Deafinitely Wonderful “.

Today was wonderful.