Did you know around a third of the deaf and severely hard of hearing community deal with low literacy? Reading is not an easy skill to learn when so much of its basics rely on the study of sounds. That’s where American Sign Language (ASL) comes in. The visual language helps bridge the language barrier for deaf communities, yet it’s closed captioning that is more readily available on streaming services like Disney+. With that, the streamer -- along with Marvel Studios -- gave ASL speakers an exciting gift -- a version of a Marvel Cinematic Universe film that utilizes the language.
In honor of National American Sign Language Day, Marvel announced that for the first time ever, one of its movies -- 2015’s Ant-Man -- now has an ASL version and is available to stream on the website and app. For those with a Disney+ subscription, when you click on the first Paul Rudd-led Marvel movie on the platform and go to the “Extras” tab on the menu before you click play, you can view the ASL version of the superhero origin story. It features ASL performer Jac Cook in the right bottom corner offering translations throughout the movie, like so:
The ASL version of Ant-Man was created by Deluxe, RespectAbility alongside Douglas Ridloff, the husband of Lauren Ridloff -- the actress who plays the MCU’s first deaf superhero. Douglas also served as an ASL coach and consultant on Eternals, both A Quiet Place movies and Marvel’s upcoming Echo series. Delbert Whetter, one of the folks behind this new dub, says it was created to “communicate Ant-Man’s entertaining dialogue and sound effects in a manner befitting Marvel’s distinctive style, subversive humor, and high-velocity action” in ASL.
The ASL-speaking community erupted in cheers on Twitter over the announcement, even though some people are definitely confused why the Paul Rudd-led flick was specifically chosen to be the first movie. Why not do the Marvel movies in order? Many are hoping this will lead to the option being applied to “every single movie,” whereas others predict Disney+ is trying out the feature ahead of Hawkeye spinoff series Echo, which stars Alaqua Cox as Maya Lopez, a Deaf Native American superhero. Lopez's latest adventure takes place after the events of Clint Barton's series, and release date has yet to be announced.
This move may also be due to the fact that the last MCU movie that hit theaters was Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Marvel and Disney+ may have thought more audiences would be flocking back to the superhero movie that marked the start of Scott Lang’s journey in the cinematic universe. With the ASL version now out, you can't help but wonder if the platform and other streaming services will make more ASL versions of movies available to audiences. One can only hope.
Catch up on more Marvel movies on Disney+, and know that the next entry is Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, which opens in theaters on May 5 as part of the schedule of 2023 new movie releases.
