A call to find the superpower within each of us, to look past those barriers, past disability itself, and always to engage in relationship with those who seem different or more fragile. Cece Bell is an American writer and illustrator who in 2014 told the story of her childhood as a deaf girl in El Deafo, a graphic novel of remarkable success in the United States that won her an Eisner Award (the comics world's equivalent of the Oscar) for best publication for young readers. El Deafo arrived in Italy under the title Supersorda (Piemme 2017, translated by Elena Orlandi), and in January became an animated miniseries on Apple TV+, the paid streaming platform. Three half-hour episodes tell the story of young Cece: deaf from age four as a result of meningitis, for her the bulky hearing aid she wore was almost more painful than the deafness itself.
This was the 1970s, when equipment was far from the discreet devices we know today. Deaf people had to wear a box on their chest (the receiver) connected by wire to headphones—an awkward sensory experience even at home, let alone among classmates and friends. The series renders this discomfort with considerable courage by muffling nearly all dialogue: to give viewers the same experience Cece has, all voices except hers as narrator sound exactly as she would hear them—low, distorted, and unclear. An effect even more powerful than the graphic tricks of the original comic, where deafness is expressed through text distortion. To complete the circle of representation and sensory fidelity, both in the original and Italian versions, Cece is voiced by a deaf actress: in the United States it is Cece Bell herself, the writer, in Italy it is Deborah Donadio, already an Italian Sign Language dubbing actress in Lampadino & Caramella (see Ombre e Luci no. 150) and an Italian Sign Language instructor for cinema and theater.
When Cece realizes her hearing aid lets her listen to people even at considerable distance, she finds herself one step ahead of her classmates. This is where she imagines stepping into the role of superhero: put on the Sonic Ear, wrap a cape around her shoulders, and in an instant she's ready to defend herself against insensitive classmates and teachers! This does more than make her suddenly the most popular kid in school—and here lies the real strength of Supersorda—it completely flips the narrative of her disability from limiting to enriching. Though this might seem like a gimmick that wouldn't work with other disabilities, it actually opens the door to understanding that relationships, not individual senses, matter most in a person's life. Throughout the story, Cece focuses less on the inability to hear than on all the relational barriers her deafness puts in her way; friendship, romance, and her teachers' understanding are the real sources of inner conflict. This is why Supersorda is an invitation to find the superpower within each of us, to look past the barriers, past disability, to always engage in relationship with those who seem different. Saying it, even on television, never gets old.
English version:What if being deaf was a superpower?