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'Switched at Birth' creator Lizzy Weiss on tonight's all-ASL episode

ABC Family's look at deaf culture moves to the forefront

By Alan Sepinwall Monday, Mar 4, 2013 9:32 AM

<p>Tonight's "Switched at Birth" is presented almost entirely in American Sign Language.</p>

Tonight's "Switched at Birth" is presented almost entirely in American Sign Language.

Credit: ABC Family
The title of ABC Family’s “Switched at Birth” would suggest some kind of loud, cheesey exploitation drama. And the show certainly doesn't run away from the more melodramatic aspects of how teens Bay (Vanessa Marano) and Daphne (Katie Leclerc) accidentally were raised by each other’s biological parents. But "Switched at Birth" offers subtler, deeper pleasures as well — not least of which is the way it explores deaf culture through the story of Daphne, who lost most of her hearing at a young age, her friend Emmett (Sean Berdy), and the school for the deaf both attend.
 
The challenges of being deaf in a hearing world — and of being hearing parents meeting the deaf daughter they never knew they had — is a complicated subject, and one that “Switched at Birth” takes very seriously. The show will frequently present scenes between Daphne and Emmett, or between one of them and Emmett’s mother Melody (Marlee Matlin), where the dialogue is presented entirely in American Sign Language, with subtitles. They’re among the show’s most powerful — and most attention-demanding, because you can’t fold your laundry or play Words With Friends when the characters are speaking without making a sound.
 
Tonight’s episode (it airs at 8 p.m.) takes the concept even further, as it details a student protest over the closure of the special high school. There’s a brief scene at the beginning featuring vocalized dialogue, but after that, everything’s presented in ASL and/or with subtitles, even scenes featuring characters like Daphne’s biological mother Kathryn (Lea Thompson), who always speaks out loud as she signs.
 
It’s a powerful use of the concept, and a great way for “Switched at Birth” to really drive home what the world is like for these kids.
 
I asked the show’s creator, Lizzy Weiss, about how she wound up writing a series with two hooks in one, the challenges and advantages of doing scenes entirely in ASL, and more. 
 
At what phase of developing the series did you decide that Daphne would be deaf? How and why was that decision made?
 
Lizzy Weiss: In September, 2009, I sold the concept of two families discovering that their daughters were accidentally switched at birth. After I wrote the first outline, the network suggested that we up the stakes even more by making one of the girls different in some way so that the family with resources might feel even more disconnected from her. I loved that thought and instantly said 'What if one of the girls is deaf?' I had taken a class called Theater of the Deaf in college -- and I can't tell you how many people made fun of me for taking such a 'useless' class instead of the requirements -- so I had a bit of background in ASL (American Sign Language), deaf culture, etc. 

What, if anything, were you surprised by as you learned more about deaf culture?
 
Lizzy Weiss: I dove into research on deaf culture and history, visiting a deaf high school and a deaf theater company, reading memoirs, interviewing people. The thing that surprised me the most was something that we've explored a lot in the show, and explicitly said in a recent episode: most deaf people, if offered a magic pill to wake up tomorrow and become hearing, wouldn't take it. There is a pride and perspective and identity that comes from being deaf that most people in the community wouldn't swap out for a chance to be part of the mainstream. 

The deaf/hearing culture clash essentially makes this two shows (or at least two high concepts) in one, which in theory gives you more potential viewers to attract. Do you hear much, if at all, from viewers who say they specifically watch the show for that aspect of it, and who might not otherwise be interested in either a well-executed teen drama or a show about two girls who were switched at birth?
 
Lizzy Weiss: Our show is about a lot of things: nature vs. nurture, mother/daughter politics, how issues of class and race affect parenting, etc. And while the insight into deaf culture is fascinating, I think ultimately, viewers stay for the storytelling. We pride ourselves on doing a show that's universal, emotional, and nuanced. 

When you were first developing the series, how often did you anticipate doing all-ASL scenes like the ones we so often get between Daphne and Emmett? Was there any pushback from network or studio executives on that aspect of it? I know the "Lost" producers, for instance, got grief at times when they would do a Jin and Sun story that was all subtitled. 
 
Lizzy Weiss: Early on, I told the network that I could 'cheat' the Daphne/Regina scenes (Daphne is the deaf teenager, Regina is her hearing but ASL-fluent mother) by having them 'Sim Com.'  (Sim Com is short for simultaneous communication, which means signing and talking at the same time.) But I knew that I couldn't cheat scenes between two deaf characters. They'd have to be captioned.  To my great surprise, the network instantly was onboard and said 'let's do it', and they've never backed down from being supportive of our ASL-only scenes.

It's very rare these days when I'm watching a TV show without having a second screen open, even if it's just to take notes. But whenever you do an all-ASL scene, I can't focus on anything but what's happening in the show. (I didn't even bother opening my laptop before watching this episode.) It's a much deeper level of engagement than I have in a lot of shows. Did you think about that when began writing those scenes, or was it a happy byproduct?
 
Lizzy Weiss: I had heard the conventional wisdom that Americans don't like to read too much and that we'd have to be careful about how many ASL scenes we have, but like you, many people have said that they love how engaged they have to be. Ironically, the silent scenes are the ones that command the most attention. I hadn't anticipated this, but it has been, as you say, a happy byproduct, and one that has allowed us to go all the way -- to an all-ASL episode. 
 
How long have you been thinking about doing an episode like this one? Was it a hard sell with the network?
 
Lizzy Weiss: In the writers' room, we've always bounced around two ideas we wanted to do someday: an all-ASL episode and an episode in which we show life for the families as it would have been if the switch hadn't happened.  For some reason, I always thought both of these episodes would be way down the line, but it came up recently with the network and they said 'We love the ASL idea, why wait?'  

Obviously, it makes sense for the scenes featuring just the deaf kids to be ASL-only, but as Vanessa and Katie warn us at the start of the hour, there's no vocalization for most of the episode, even in scenes featuring characters like Kathryn who are speaking out loud as they sign. Why did you decide to do it that way?
 
Lizzy Weiss: The concept of the episode is 'this is what life is like for a deaf person.' Every scene has at least one deaf person in it, that was our rule. We would never cut away to two hearing people, because they wouldn't be signing to each other, and we wanted to keep our concept. I guess we could have done a scene from the POV of a deaf person of two hearing people talking, but then we would not have captioned the conversation; we would have shown what it's like to be deaf in a world in which most everyone speaks only. We do scenes all the time in which we sim com, so the challenge was to do something different. Once we struck upon the concept of 'this is from the perspective of a deaf person', our 'rules' fell into place. 

There's still music on the soundtrack. Did you ever consider the idea of going completely silent? Why did you ultimately decide to use songs, score, etc.?
 
Lizzy Weiss: We knew pretty early on that being all silent would be too quiet and give the wrong idea. What I mean is, even our 'regular' episodes, we use score to reflect the emotional state of the characters in the scenes, and this episode is no different. The score and the songs represent the emotional state of the characters as they struggle to take back their school.

Having made more than three dozen episodes of the show before this one, all of them featuring ASL in some way, were there any specific challenges to doing an episode like this? Or do you pretty know exactly how to structure and stage these scenes, even if they're not interspersed among ones with vocalized dialogue?
 
Lizzy Weiss: We've learned a lot about how to write, shoot, and edit ASL scenes, but shooting 40 of them back to back in one episode was a whole other ballgame. We realized we had to tell more of a visual story, kind of like 'The Artist', where you figure out what is going by without people telling you. Plus there were all the production challenges of having a dozen interpreters on set (one for each deaf actor), blocking each scene so that the characters can see each other at all times and don't have props in their hands so that they can sign, lots of things like that. But it was fun. We had a really good time with it. 

Is this something you'd like to try again at some point? If so, would you need a story to motivate it, like this one about the school closing, or would you be comfortable doing an entire hour from Daphne or Emmett or Melody's point of view?
 
Lizzy Weiss: I hadn't thought about that yet - but sure, why not? I know that the writers and I would want to figure out again 'why are we telling this story this way?' and if we came across another story that we felt would be best told this way, I can't see why we wouldn't do it again. 
 
Alan Sepinwall may be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com

 

Alan-sepinwall-sm
Alan Sepinwall
Sr. Editor, What's Alan Watching
Alan Sepinwall has been reviewing television since the mid-'90s, first for Tony Soprano's hometown paper, The Star-Ledger, and now for HitFix. His new book, "The Revolution Was Televised," about the last 15 years of TV drama, is for sale at Amazon. He can be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com
Related Searches: Switched At Birth, Vanessa Marano, Katie Leclerc, Lizzy Weiss

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  • Default-avatar

    aamadis

    Really excited to see this show tonight now. So glad you did this interview Alan. I know you don't follow the show on your blog (wah!), but nice to know you are an appreciator. SAB is one of my top five shows, possibly top three.

    March 4, 2013 at 12:23PM EST Reply to Comment
    • Default-avatar

      jenfullmoon Me too. I love this show and am really psyched to get to watch it.

      March 4, 2013 at 1:02PM EST
    • Default-avatar

      Moon Agreed. This was a great interview. Alan, I hope you will consider following this show on your blog (wah!). SAB is one of my top three, probably top two, shows.

      March 7, 2013 at 9:54PM EST
  • Default-avatar

    Patricia

    As much as I enjoy the show exploring deaf culture, it has been to the detriment of the Regina/Bay/Adrianna relationships. We get a lot of Daphne/Regina, Daphne/Kennishes, Daphne/deaf community, Bay/Kennishes, Bay/deaf community, but marginal Bay/Regina, and grandma Adrianna is mostly absent. Regina and Adrianna seem uninterested in Bay's life, while the Kennishes will be parenting everyone by the time this show is done. Even "Latino" issues are being explored through John Kennish's campaign. And it's not that I want those issues to be Bay/Regina's equivalent of Daphne/Kennish's deaf culture shock, but it's just another example of how unbalanced this show is in the portrayal of what is supposed to be the main premise of the show, two teens switched at birth, BOTH getting to know their biological parents.

    March 4, 2013 at 1:29PM EST Reply to Comment
  • Default-avatar

    lis

    Respectfully, Deaf culture should be a capital D. Lower case "d" deaf is a matter of hearing, capital "D" Deaf is a culture of ASL and includes interpreters and children of Deaf adults (CODAs) as well as Deaf and Hard of Hearing for whom sign is a primary language.

    March 4, 2013 at 1:46PM EST Reply to Comment
  • Default-avatar

    BigTed

    As a teen drama, "Switched at Birth" is a better-than-average show. (I realize it also focuses on the adults in the family, but their problems really aren't very interesting.) But as a window into Deaf culture, it's a fantastic show. This is one of the few programs on TV I feel I've actually learned something from watching.

    March 4, 2013 at 3:35PM EST Reply to Comment
  • Default-avatar

    bob

    note this might be on earlier in you time zone. It's on at 5 p.m. Pacific.

    March 4, 2013 at 4:43PM EST Reply to Comment
    • Default-avatar

      aamadis No, 7:00 PST.

      March 4, 2013 at 8:46PM EST
  • Satan_is_real_talkback_profile

    erika_herzog

    i was really excited for this episode. but watching it i am confused by the choice to not leave the ambient sound / room tone in, like they usually do for the scenes with people signing.

    i understand the conceptual idea of having there be no sound, that it represents how someone with 100% hearing loss would experience the world, but the lack of sound was made all the more jarring by the weird soundtrack that i think was clunkily inserted. either go all the way (complete silence) or go ambient sound....

    and wouldn't the point of having an all ASL episode be more interesting if instead of an overall lack of sound we just followed everything from the perspective of those who couldn't hear? i think that would have made the show just as "all ASL" but without this jarring uber-silence.

    yes, i know that is how someone with 100% hearing loss might experience things. i'm not arguing this.

    i guess i think the idea behind this episode would have been more cleverly approached, also, if maybe it had come from the perspective of Max Lloyd-Jones, whose deafness has accelerated. that would have been a really easy way to relate to the lack of sound. i find his storyline to be pretty interesting and moving, so....

    i really enjoy this show, love the cast. don't mean to come off harsh or critical because it's a great show, very well done. my elementary school was part deaf when i grew up in Nebraska and i really appreciate seeing ASL / this world represented.

    thanks again,

    erika

    March 4, 2013 at 11:54PM EST Reply to Comment
    • Default-avatar

      Dan I'm 100% with you!. The music threw me off, too.

      March 5, 2013 at 1:31AM EST
    • Duckorbunnysmall_talkback_profile

      ghoti It made sense to me. A deaf person wouldn't hear ambient sound, so that would have been jarring to me. The score is something none of the characters hear. It only exists for the viewer at home. I preferred that to just dead silence.

      March 5, 2013 at 4:24AM EST
    • Default-avatar

      Sarai I also understand that without music, as an episode, it would have lacked, because the music here is not really for listening, but for feeling. It sets a mood and makes us viewers connect more with what the characters are feeling or thinking, leading us better through what is happening. If they would have wanted an episode more like a documentary and not a story, then the episode could have been all silent and it would have suited it better. Of course I say this as a hearing person that's perhaps not too comfortable with an all silent episode! Perhaps it would have been great all silent to experience it fully. All I know is that this series has taught me a lot, I keep learning about and appreciating the amazing Deaf community. :)

      March 5, 2013 at 8:03PM EST
    • Default-avatar

      Sarai Actually, I watched it again, having it on mute, and it's definitely a different experience. I guess I like both. All mute feels more intense and more real. I guess I feel somewhat lucky I can 'switch' the music/sound version on or off and experience both.

      March 6, 2013 at 1:54AM EST
  • Default-avatar

    steve

    I notice that the words on the screen do not match the asl. There are more words written than are signed. Are we supposed to believe that the deaf infer all that meaning into their signs?

    March 5, 2013 at 6:47AM EST Reply to Comment
    • Default-avatar

      Tobias In any sign language, the signs themself are only part of the language. Watch the expressions in the faces, the way the bodys move, they are all part of the language.
      When you translate any language, you wouldn't translate word by word, you would translate the meaning of what is being said.

      OnT:
      Loved this episode! Hope there'll be more ASL only episodes like this and that more hearing characters will sign more often.

      I watched the show muted as I found the music distracting, would have preferred having ambient sounds only as that is what I'm used to when I'm in a sign-language only situation.

      I like the way they show the subtitles in close proximity to the speakers and not at the bottom, that way I can pick up more signs easier. I speak Swedish Sign Language (SSL) fluently but only know a little ASL. Wanting to learn more ASL, watching shows in ASL help immensely.

      In Sweden we have several shows and news in SSL, dubbed in Swedish for SSL-deficient people. Hope to see more international shows incorporating sign language and Deaf culture.

      March 5, 2013 at 8:36AM EST
    • Default-avatar

      TJ To me, the lack of ambient sound was worth it entirely for the last moment. Which was stunning.

      Excellent episode. Probably the single best they've done. And--no kidding--one of the best episodes of TV I've seen so far this year.

      March 5, 2013 at 9:18AM EST

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