CODA：Voices from Two Kinds of Marginalized People

Abstract

Awarded the “Best Picture” at the 94th Oscars, CODA portrays two kinds of marginalized people: the hearing-impaired people and their hearing descendants. The hearing-impaired people are often the marginalized people who are “otherized” by the hearing people, also their binary opposites; while the descendants of the hearing-impaired people are also marginalized into a third space, since they cannot integrate into either side of the binary opposites. Combining the classic images of the two kinds of marginalized people in other films and works, and explaining the roles of the two kinds of marginalized people in the film with the theories of dualistic opposition and the "thirdspace", we can better learn the survival plight of the two kinds of marginalized people, listen to their voices, and understand their tendencies of resistance and integration in face of the mainstream society and culture.