One of the loveliest surprises of this year’s Academy Awards was the Best Live Action Short win for The Silent Child, a British film about a young deaf girl. The night was stolen by the film's cast, including its writer and supporting actress Rachel Shenton, who fleetingly took the focus away from the MeToo campaign which had dominated the event by giving her acceptance speech in British Sign Language (BSL) as a promise to the film’s six-year-old profoundly deaf star.
The last time deafness featured this prominently at the Oscars was 30 years ago, when the deaf actress Marlee Matlin was named Best Actress for her performance in Children of a Lesser God; she's still the only disabled actor to...