"Most profoundly deaf people have speech that is very difficult to understand"
About this Quote
Masur’s line lands with the bluntness of something people think they’re not allowed to say out loud. It’s not poetic; it’s practical. And that’s the point. By choosing “most” and “very difficult,” he frames the observation as a demographic reality, not a moral judgment, pushing back against the feel-good impulse to pretend disability never comes with friction. The sentence works because it names a tension at the heart of inclusion: empathy doesn’t magically erase communication barriers.
The subtext is aimed less at deaf people than at hearing audiences and institutions. If speech is hard to understand for many profoundly deaf speakers, then the “fix” can’t just be asking the deaf person to perform intelligibility for everyone else. It quietly redirects responsibility onto the environment: interpreters, captions, patience, training, and a willingness to meet people where they are rather than where convenience lives. There’s also an implied critique of casting and representation. An actor saying this suggests he’s encountered the entertainment industry’s preference for palatable disability - the kind that reads clearly on camera and doesn’t “slow down” dialogue. The remark punctures that bias.
Context matters because “profoundly deaf” is doing heavy lifting. Profound deafness often limits access to auditory feedback used to shape spoken language; speech patterns can differ in articulation and rhythm. Masur’s specificity avoids the sloppy generalization that all deaf people sound the same, while still insisting that difficulty is common enough to plan for.
It’s an uncomfortable sentence designed to force a more adult compassion: not denial, but accommodation.
The subtext is aimed less at deaf people than at hearing audiences and institutions. If speech is hard to understand for many profoundly deaf speakers, then the “fix” can’t just be asking the deaf person to perform intelligibility for everyone else. It quietly redirects responsibility onto the environment: interpreters, captions, patience, training, and a willingness to meet people where they are rather than where convenience lives. There’s also an implied critique of casting and representation. An actor saying this suggests he’s encountered the entertainment industry’s preference for palatable disability - the kind that reads clearly on camera and doesn’t “slow down” dialogue. The remark punctures that bias.
Context matters because “profoundly deaf” is doing heavy lifting. Profound deafness often limits access to auditory feedback used to shape spoken language; speech patterns can differ in articulation and rhythm. Masur’s specificity avoids the sloppy generalization that all deaf people sound the same, while still insisting that difficulty is common enough to plan for.
It’s an uncomfortable sentence designed to force a more adult compassion: not denial, but accommodation.
Quote Details
| Topic | Health |
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