Children of a Lesser God’s patriarchy
Recently I was watching some clips from Mark Medoff’s film adaptation of his famous book Children of a Lesser God (CLG). I’ve never read the book however William Hurt as James Leeds in the film version comes across as a quite insidious patriarch. I have seen the film before, once when it was first released and again when it was first shown on television. I have also seen the stage play with Trevor Eve and Elizabeth Quinn. All that was a good few years ago. At the time I had simply seen both the film and play as the classic hearing versus Deaf/oralism versus sign language thing and it was in that sense, despite the lauded romanticism it was seen for at the time, also a quite dark story about oralist oppression and a love that emerged from within that situation.
There’s no doubt the Deaf were in those days conditioned to see the film in such a way that any deeper significance would not be easily realised. This was of course the historical state of the Deaf community at the time. The deeper significance of those historical abuses had not yet made the grade until around this time when Harlan Lane’s ground-breaking book When the Mind Hears, was published. It was not long after that the BBC made a filmed version of that book. The one hour production had the same name as the book and it was quite an eye opener for many of us, in learning in just how much the hearing, oral, world and its cronies had sought to abuse and subvert Deaf communities everywhere.
Certainly the many other historical abuses such as racism, sexism, violence against women and so on took much longer to be understood – especially in lieu of the Deaf consciousness. In consideration of that, a greater cognizance was evolved during the 1990s. Even so, its amazingly to think it was not until 2025 before I saw CLG in a totally different light. There’s no doubt the different and more critical attuning that’s possible now clearly shows CLG in what can only be quite an alarming new perspective.
The first impression from watching clips from the film in 2025 was Leeds clearly thought he had every right and authority upon Sarah Norman in every way possible, including her independence, her allure, her body and no doubt her choice of communication too. Conversely if people had merely wanted to watch the film for its now outdated romance content, well that is essentially how they would have seen CLG for what it was extolled as originally – which is that of a strongly romantic film intertwined with a certain amount of oralist oppression.
Viewing the film from a 2025 perspective (this is forty years after the film was made) I can only digress that in very much the same sense as the view held during the 1980s, the film’s depiction of oralism is still shocking. But not only that, if one puts the oralism and any semblance of romanticism to one side, or if they prefer, to bracket it even (in a phenomenological sense) and that in parallel with what can only be a new perspective, its quite easy to see just what a disgusting man James Leeds had been. Hurt’s performance puts so much power into his acting role there’s no doubt an insidious male attitude can be quite easily discerned. There’s no doubt James Leeds could quite easily pass as one who desired what could only be seen as a complete submission as well as the practice of oppression upon women. Essentially there’s so much male power portrayed in the film if one is able to view it in terms of cultivating an overview of what that particular doctrine was about. Let’s consider the following quote:
I am grateful that I saw the film for the first time this year. If I had seen it at a younger age, I am sure that I would have interpreted the story in a completely different way. Seeing something romantic instead of abusive, and inspiring instead of manipulative. (Filmotomy).
That is exactly how I found CLG. In the 1980’s I would have not realised there was more to it than just the romanticism that had been so widely publicised. In 2025 the film is very different from what I remembered it to be. There are a number of reviews and research undertaken recently that shows the film’s insidious aspects. The recent New York stage production of the play had reviewers claiming it was just too creepy in terms of the current #MeToo movement. See this next quote for example:
Leeds’ behaviour as he tries to woo his former student starts to feel a bit stalker-like and creepy, climbing up a tree and peering into her bedroom, persuading her to open the window to let him in. He then proceeds to seduce her at the same time as he tells her they don’t have to do anything that night. Back in the 80’s, maybe this development was seen as natural and even romantic, but in these days of the #MeToo movement with these type of power dynamics being scrutinized and investigated, his behaviour being characterized as romantic is just not acceptable anymore. Their whole relationship, even when taken in the period context, seems awash in unbalanced power and control and her character is limited and devalued to a woman who marvels at the idea of a blender in her lovely new kitchen. (Front Mezz Junkies).
And this one:
Locating an issue in male control, and setting her heroine against that control, Children of a Lesser God has a central message that’s relevant to MeToo; there’s no reason for any woman to have to accept a male view of the world around them. (Film Authority).
William Hurt and Marlee Matlin had a relationship as a result of the film – and even though it was undoubtedly the usual ideal fayre to begin with, it eventually turned out to be the usual par for the course in terms of abuse and coercion. The next two quotes highlight this:
Mainstream expectations and prejudices complicate the film’s message of empowerment in other respects as well. Hurt, who was 35, and Matlin, who was 19, had a real, and extremely abusive, relationship off set. Matlin said that Hurt, who was often drunk, beat her repeatedly, and raped her on at least one occasion. He was also emotionally abusive. On the night of the Oscars, where she won for Best Actress and he lost for Best Actor, he sneered at her in the car, ‘What makes you think you deserve it?’ (Splice Today).
That wasn’t the end of the tirade apparently. Here’s the next bit:
She described getting into a limo after a party, shiny gold statue by her side. Then Hurt got in the car and started laying into her verbally: ‘What makes you think you deserve it? There are hundreds of actors who have worked for years for the recognition you just got handed to you’, she remembers. ‘Think about that’. He then told her to sign up for acting classes. (Guardian).
For me its clear CLG stinks massively in terms of the male psyche. Not only that it stinks too in terms of the ways and means the oralists (mostly men no doubt, but also some female ennoblers such as the Hare that scatters across the fields of Berkshire leaving a mighty trail of oralism) who conferred their distorted and grossly mistaken ideology upon the Deaf. To have to fight what can only be a sneering attitude that emanates from hearing people is bad. However, to have to fight more than just that beggars disbelief. What that means is Deaf women are to be expected to fight both a shite oralism and an evil patriarchy that quests its total dominance over women.
I turned to AI and asked in what way CLG had extolled the virtues of patriarchy and here is what AI says:
Children of a Lesser God is about patriarchy, primarily through the relationship between Sarah and James, which represents broader themes of male control and the struggle of a marginalized culture against a patriarchal system. The film explores how James’s desire to change Sarah reflects his own internalized prejudices and desire to control her life, which Sarah resists in a fight for her autonomy.
- Male control and autonomy: The central conflict is James’s push for Sarah to conform to the hearing world by learning to speak and lip-read, representing a patriarchal attempt to “fix” her rather than accept her as she is. Sarah ultimately fights back, asserting her right to exist as a deaf person on her own terms.
- Cultural identity: The story also portrays the struggle of the deaf community for its own identity against a system that is described as paternalistic and historically hostile to them. Sarah’s resistance is a stand for her culture’s right to speak for itself, rather than be assimilated into a hearing-centric, male-dominated world.
- Feminist themes: The film has been interpreted as a feminist statement against male suppression, with James’s actions being seen as reflecting internalized sexism. Sarah’s journey is about recognizing and rejecting the idea that she must conform to a man’s expectations to have a fulfilling life.
- Ableism and sexism combined: While the film is a love story at its core, it is also about how ableism and sexism intersect. James’s desire to change Sarah can be viewed as a combination of his prejudiced, ableist views and his patriarchal assumptions about what she should be.
What Google’s Gemini AI says about the film is very interesting. There’s no doubt CLG has acquired a rather different sort of pedigree compared to that which began the film’s career as a major ground-breaking movie for the genre it had covered. Evidently upon its release everyone went to see it with rose-tinted spectacles – and now those have been thrown away the film can be seen rather more in terms of what it reveals – from a 21st Century perspective.
Its not just patriarchy for CLG is also about audism and oralism as most Deaf know only too well. Besides its also a phonocentric means of production. Its a film made for hearing people by way of how its produced. Its not made in visual terms specifically for the Deaf, but rather its done quite considerably in an aural sense for hearing audiences. (See this shocking in-depth analysis for example which highlights how the movie is in fact a vehicle for the hearing and therefore a medium for abuse on yet another level – this being audism/oralism. That article was published just two weeks ago! This aspect of the film is something Deaf21 would perhaps like to write about for a later article). CLG also has what can only be this quite unconventional (and even unintentional) story in how it depicts various attempts at what can only be a subjugation of Deaf women, and there’s no doubt that oralism is used as the excuse for this quite insidious effort.
A number of clips from CLG can be found on Youtube – this one for example where Sarah tells James that love has nothing to do with the abuse he is doling out. And this one where Sarah was used as a sex object simply for the pleasure of males lined up for that purpose. And that in the very sense she was not allowed to resist nor to voice a opinion on the coercion being undertaken – because they thought she had no means of voicing her disgust. In a sense it reflects quite substantially what had happened in the case of Gisèle Pelicot (even though that is not specifically about deafness, it still renders the notion that a woman unable to respond is a necessary opium for the male’s bestial desires.) It quite clearly illustrates the distorted psychology that’s evident in patriarchy – and elements of that very doctrine can also be found in other scenes from the film too.
