Actor and model Nyle DiMarco blasted Netflix’s new film “Sierra Burgess Is a Loser” for making fun of deaf people.
In the film, Sierra Burgess (Shannon Purser) starts catfishing Jamey (Noah Centineo) after popular girl Veronica (Kristine Froseth) gives him a fake phone number. During one scene, Sierra and her friend Dan (RJ Cyler) run into Jamey and his brother at the park. Sierra doesn’t want Jamey to recognize her voice so she pretends to be deaf. Jamey reveals that his brother is deaf and Sierra has to pretend to understand ASL.
DiMarco, who is deaf, took to Twitter to slam the film for using deafness as a joke.
“So one of my close friends’ deaf brother is in Sierra Burgess When I learned, I was elated. Finally more deaf actors/representation & ASL inclusion in films … Only to find out the deaf character was written and used for a terrible joke. PS- pretending to be deaf is NOT ok,” DiMarco tweeted.
He also called out the film for using homophobic and transphobic jokes.
“There were homophobic and transphobic jokes as well,” DiMarco continued. “It is extremely easy to make jokes about marginalized/disfranchised groups … but that makes you a lazy writer. And honestly you shouldn’t make these jokes AT ALL because our lives are on the line.”
https://twitter.com/NyleDiMarco/status/1038806959875452929
