Hearing Hawkeye
A media review of the Disney+ TV show
So I decided I wanna cosplay Hawkeye. It’d be so easy, my dudes!
In the comics, Hawkeye is canonically deaf. The severity and onset of his disability has varied across writers, but Hawkeye has consistently been a representative of hearing disabilities in Marvel’s superhero universe. Hawkeye’s disability has been best and most consistently represented in the 2012 Hawkeye series by Fraction, Aja, and Hollingsworth; and the spin-off series Hawkeye vs. Deadpool by Duggan and Harren.
Matt Fraction’s Hawkeye series ran from 2012-2015 and follows post-Avengers Cliff Barton as he tries to reconcile his Avenger hero-dom and runs into the infamous Kate Bishop. Cue all the dad jokes, and Fraction absolutely embraced Barton’s hearing disability.
Hawkeye #019 is entirely in American Sign Language (ASL) and in segments of words that don’t necessarily make sense - it stands out as the “deaf issue” and shows how much work it takes to navigate a hearing world when you can’t hear 100%.
There’s also a mini-series from 2014 called Hawkeye vs. Deadpool in which Hawkeye and Deadpool inadvertently team up to solve a mystery during Halloween season. It’s full of delightful and iconic moments between the two in which Deadpool and Hawkeye communicate with Hawkeye’s disability in mind.
The inconsistency across writers means that Hawkeye’s disability hasn’t had the impact on his story that it could. It’s usually just a plot device, and the biggest impact it had was his 1988 romance with Mockingbird (Mark Gruenwald and Brett Breeding). In the Marvel movie series, neither Barton nor his actor have a hearing disability at all. Instead he’s kind of brushed off as The Boring Avenger without any superpowers (or any disability). That’s the whole schtick.
Representation of disabilities in media has always been difficult, whether it’s a plot device or something to “overcome” rather than to experience. Hearing in particular is often portrayed as causing super-vision or mind-reading as a way to avoid writing about it. It’s also often shown as all-or-nothing; characters either hear nothing at all or can hear everything just fine. That’s why the absence of his hearing disability in the movie series was easy to dismiss.
That’s also why Fraction’s representation of hearing disability was so powerful in the comics. Hawkeye wasn’t born deaf, and his experience of hearing and not hearing is influenced by this. He can hear and/or he can remember what voices sound like, so he speaks clearly. He has learned some ASL, but doesn’t rely on it completely. He relies on his hearing aids, which means he still has some hearing, and isn’t completely deaf.
When I heard about Fraction’s and Duggan’s comics I actually was more excited about Kate Bishop and the sort of father-daughter dynamic portrayed within it. I knew he was portrayed as hard of hearing and that there were great moments that I saw in screenshots, but his hearing disability wasn’t the plot, it was an identity feature. Like Kate Bishop is a younger girl, and Cliff Barton has a hearing disability.
And that’s the point.
The Disney+ mini-series of Hawkeye is - thankfully - based on Fraction’s Hawkeye comics. They hit the ground running by addressing his hearing disability as late-onset hearing damage from his superhero work. Makes sense, right?
Barton now has a hearing aid, he lipreads, and he signs a little bit. There are scenes where he seems to function normally but maybe misses a word, scenes where his hearing aid is destroyed and he can’t hear at all, and there are scenes where he relies on lipreading or sign language, and subtitles provide the dialogue for the viewers.
There’s a lovely scene on a city train where Bishop tries to talk to Barton, but he can’t hear and responds in a way that agrees with what she was observing. There’s another scene where Bishop jumps into translator mode and relays what she hears on the phone by writing words, so Barton can respond with his own voice.
It’s so godsdamn accurate.
I love how quickly Bishop is able to accommodate Barton in a way that retains his independence, and I love that Barton has a few different methods to get information when one method is lacking.
There were some minor inaccuracies that I noticed as a hard of hearing person. Mainly that when Barton isn’t wearing his hearing aids, he’s completely deaf. There’s no voices at all. If this were the case I don’t think he would benefit from hearing aids.
In my experience, without hearing aids I can’t hear high frequencies and when people talk it sounds like they’re underwater. I can only hear lower frequencies, like my keyboard clunking, or a door closing. I rely really heavily on lipreading and visual cues when I can’t hear.
The scene where his hearing aids get destroyed was especially cruel — that was a five-thousand dollar stomp. He was damn lucky he could just “go to a shop” and “get it fixed”. In real life he would have had to go like a week without it. I would cry if my hearing aids were destroyed.
The other thing that I really appreciated about the mini-series is the presence of Echo. Maya Lopez is a born-deaf Indigenous character who works closely with Kingpin. Her ability is learning physical moves quickly, an ability which is directly influenced by her deafness and her reliance on acute observation.
But it gets cooler. The actress portraying her, Alaqua Cox, IS ALSO DEAF and Indigenous! Her scenes rely on lipreading, visual cues, and sign language. We’re introduced to her deafness when she touches a speaker playing music to feel its vibrations. I loved her character despite the Deaf/deaf snobbery (which is accurate in some places). The attention to detail for her character’s identity felt wholesome and respectful, and seeing two different experiences of hearing disability in the same show really helped show how broad the experience can be.
Overall I’m so stoked about this show. The characters are great, plots are interesting, and the diversity of the characters is handled exceptionally well.
THIS is what representation looks like.
So yeah. I really like Hawkeye. I’m hard of hearing, my family’s into archery, I have the same haircut, and I’m looking forward to cosplaying him!
Resources:
“How Did Hawkeye Originally Lose His Hearing - and Why Did the MCU Change It?” Brian Cronin, CBR.com, December 11, 2021
“‘Hawkeye’ TV Show: Comic Writer Reveals 1 ‘Huge’ Element He Enjoyed Seeing in the Marvel Disney+ Series.” Mishal Ali Zafar, Showbiz Cheat Sheet, December 9, 2021.
“Better Disability Representation Is Coming to Marvel and It’s Not Through Hawkeye’s Jeremy Renner.” Alani Vargas, Showbiz Cheat Sheet, September 14, 2021.