''No Ordinary Hero: The SuperDeafy Movie'' is a 2013 American

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

directed by

Troy Kotsur Troy Michael Kotsur (; born July 24, 1968) is an American actor. Born deaf, Kotsur made his acting debut in the late 1980s working with the National Theatre of the Deaf. His television debut was in a 2001 episode of ''Strong Medicine''. His film ...

and produced by Douglas Matejka and

Hilari Scarl Hilari Scarl is an American filmmaker who directed and produced the documentary ''See What I'm Saying: The Deaf Entertainers Documentary'' (2009), starring Bob Hiltermann, TL Forsberg, CJ Jones and Robert DeMayo. She also produced ''No Ordinary H ...

, with music score by H. Scott Salinas. The film stars John Maucere as Tony Kane/SuperDeafy and Zane Hencker as Jacob Lang. The film tells the story of a

deaf Deafness has varying definitions in cultural and medical contexts. In medical contexts, the meaning of deafness is hearing loss that precludes a person from understanding spoken language, an audiological condition. In this context it is written ...

actor who portrays a superhero on a children's television show and wants to help a young deaf boy who gets bullied at school. The film is open captioned in English.

Background

Gallaudet University Gallaudet University ( ) is a private federally chartered university in Washington, D.C., for the education of the deaf and hard of hearing. It was founded in 1864 as a grammar school for both deaf and blind children. It was the first school ...

Professor Sharon Pajka says:

SuperDeafy is the star of a popular children's television show who dresses in blue with a bright yellow cape and green briefs. His hair is a giant pompadour wig with two distinct pieces sticking out on both sides jokingly "for balance". The emblem on the front of his chest is SuperDeafy's
name sign In Deaf culture and sign language, a sign name (or a name sign) is a special sign that is used to uniquely identify a person (a name). American Sign Language In the American deaf community and American Sign Language (ASL), there are cultural nor ...
, a crossed double hand "I Love You". He's goofy and animated; the show focuses on teaching ASL (
American Sign Language American Sign Language (ASL) is a natural language that serves as the predominant sign language of Deaf communities in the United States and most of Anglophone Canadians, Anglophone Canada. ASL is a complete and organized visual language that i ...
) along with a good dose of charades that children, deaf and hearing, adore.

Deaf comedian, actor, and ASL advocate John Maucere has been performing the SuperDeafy character in the deaf community around the world since 2004, and perhaps as early as about 1998. Maucere has thus become well known in the deaf community internationally. Troy Kotsur directed a number of

webisode A webisode (portmanteau of "web" and "episode") is an episode of a series that is distributed as part of a web series or on streaming television. It is available either for download or in streaming, as opposed to first airing on broadcast or cab ...

s of the SuperDeafy program prior to ''No Ordinary Hero: The SuperDeafy Movie''.

Plot

Eight-year-old Jacob Lang is having a hard time in school, where he is in a class of

hearing Hearing, or auditory perception, is the ability to perceive sounds through an organ, such as an ear, by detecting vibrations as periodic changes in the pressure of a surrounding medium. The academic field concerned with hearing is auditory sci ...

kids (Jacob is

). Although he's trying to learn

lip reading Lip reading, also known as speechreading, is a technique of understanding a limited range of speech by visually interpreting the movements of the lips, face and tongue without sound. Estimates of the range of lip reading vary, with some figures as ...

, he has difficulty understanding and being understood. He knows

ASL American Sign Language (ASL) is a natural language that serves as the predominant sign language of Deaf communities in the United States and most of Anglophone Canada. ASL is a complete and organized visual language that is expressed by employ ...

but his classmates don't. He longs to fit in and be accepted as an average kid, but that's not happening. Jacob's teacher is recommending that he be put in a class of deaf kids to help his social development and communication skills. Jacob's mother agrees, but his father insists that Jacob will be more "normal" by remaining with hearing kids and becoming more proficient at lip-reading. Jacob is feeling helpless and depressed. Jacob finds escape from his problems in a TV program named ''SuperDeafy'' that is especially for deaf kids. ''SuperDeafy'' is about a deaf superhero who gets into comical situations with a police officer. Jacob identifies with SuperDeafy because he, too, is deaf; he fantasizes about being a superhero and surmounting his problems via imagined

superpowers Superpower describes a sovereign state or supranational union that holds a dominant position characterized by the ability to exert influence and project power on a global scale. This is done through the combined means of economic, military, tec ...

. Tony Kane plays SuperDeafy in the TV program and is deaf in real life. Tony, like Jacob, is having problems due to the self-centeredness and lack of empathy of others. Jacob's teacher, Jenny, is dating Derek (Officer Norm), Tony's supporting character on SuperDeafy. She asks Derek and Tony to come to the school and talk to the school for Diversity Day. Tony and Derek go to the school for the event, however, Derek upstages Tony by making fun of Tony for being deaf in front of the whole school. This gives a poor image of deaf people, leading people to believe deaf people are a joke and dumb. After, Jenny confronts Derek in the school parking lot telling him how inappropriate his behavior was. Tony meets Jenny in the parking lot and discovers she knows ASL. It is also apparent that Tony falls in love with her. That night, Tony quits being SuperDeafy. Jenny and Tony fall in love, and he goes on with his life without SuperDeafy. Jenny asks Tony to talk to her class since she sees Jacob is having a difficult time. He does so, and talks to the kids about what it means to be "normal". Tony explains that being normal simply means being one's own unique, authentic self. Jenny and others have a meeting with Jacob's parents and discuss their recommendation to move Jacob into the deaf kids' class. Jacob's dad is still resisting this idea, but over the following weeks he gives it further consideration and changes his mind (and also decides to learn ASL).

Cast

Production

''No Ordinary Hero'' is the first film in the history of SAG (

Screen Actors Guild The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) was an American labor union which represented over 100,000 film and television principal and background performers worldwide. On March 30, 2012, the union leadership announced that the SAG membership voted to m ...

) commercial feature films to be directed by a deaf director and to be executive-produced exclusively by deaf executive producers. The movie was filmed on location in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

and

Burbank, California Burbank is a city in the southeastern end of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Located northwest of downtown Los Angeles, Burbank had a Census-estimated population of 102,755 as of 2023. The city was ...

. The film is rated PG for mild thematic elements.

Release

The world premiere of ''No Ordinary Hero'' took place on October 19, 2013 at the

Heartland Film Festival The Heartland International Film Festival (HIFF) is a high academy qualifying film festival held each October in Indianapolis, Indiana, hosted by the nonprofit organization Heartland Film, Inc. The festival was first held in 1992, with the goal to ...

Indianapolis Indianapolis ( ), colloquially known as Indy, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Indiana, most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana, Marion ...

Indiana Indiana ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Michigan to the northwest, Michigan to the north and northeast, Ohio to the east, the Ohio River and Kentucky to the s ...

. The film was released on DVD by KimStim, Inc. on August 18, 2015.

Reception

Colleen Foy, who played Jacob's mother in the film, said this in an interview:

acob'sfamily was clearly a very important part of the film, because we have two stories going on at the same time. We have a family and a depiction of ''their'' lives, and then SuperDeafy and ''his'' life. And that moment when both of those paths cross, that's when the magic happens. The family story really does establish a beautiful reality that deaf people experience. Really, I'm ''very'' proud of this film. It was just an awesome film and it's important for the film world to show audiences and et deaf peoplesee depictions of basically their own story put into a feature film. And realize that they ''aren't'' alone out there in the world, so it's important for that reason, and we need more characters that show diversity so that way more people can see this for themselves and be inspired and see that they are indeed normal and not alone out there.

Movie reviewer Richard Propes says that ''No Ordinary Hero'' is "a must see for parents who desire to have their children grow up celebrating the differences that exist between us." Reviewer Amos Lassen says that the film "seeks to inspire, but it does so in a realistic way as many of the laughs involving Kane do center around the many challenges he faces living his daily life in a world that doesn't always understand those who appear to be 'different'."

Awards and honors

* Shepard Award for Innovative Filmmaking, 2014, The Rome International Film Festival (USA) * Best Film, 2014 Dov Film Festival (

Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

) * Best Film, 2014

Temecula Valley International Film Festival The Temecula Valley International Film Festival is a film festival held in Temecula Valley, California. Background Launched in September 1995 and held, uninterrupted every September until 2011 (later to relaunch in 2014), the festival proclaims i ...

* The

Dove Columbidae is a bird family consisting of doves and pigeons. It is the only family in the order Columbiformes. These are stout-bodied birds with small heads, relatively short necks and slender bills that in some species feature fleshy ceres. ...

"Family-Approved" Seal for people of all ages

Notes

External links

*
Theatrical trailer (2 min 5 sec)
* * *{{worldcat, oclc=913432168
John Maucere's official website
2013 films 2013 independent films American drama films American independent films Films about deaf people Deaf culture in the United States Films scored by H. Scott Salinas Films set in Los Angeles Films set in 2013 Films shot in Los Angeles American Sign Language films 2013 drama films Films about actors 2010s English-language films 2010s American films English-language independent films