In the 2013 season of the popular reality competition show Project Runway, one of the twelve designers vying for the big prize was Justin LeBlanc. Like the other designers, Justin had high hopes for launching his own fashion line: he was ready and eager to work tight deadlines on the challenges doled out by host Heidi Klum and was grateful for the helpful advice of mentor Tim Gunn and the mostly constructive critiques of the show’s three judges. But unlike his fellow competitors, Justin did not look Klum, Gunn, or the judges in the eye when they spoke. Instead, he watched his interpreter, who translated their words into American Sign Language (ASL) for him. LeBlanc is deaf; although he has a cochlear implant, he remains dependent on ASL for most of his communication.
It’s not surprising, of course, that Justin—given his passions and interests—wanted to compete in a reality show, particularly one that could launch a successful career in a fiercely competitive industry. Many people were surprised, however, by how the show handled Justin’s disability. For the most part, they ignored it by listening to him. The producers provided Justin with an interpreter and then, essentially, got out of the way. The interpreter sometimes appeared on camera but was never introduced or identified. Klum, Gunn, and the other contestants looked at Justin when speaking to him, even though he was focusing on their words through the interpreter’s signs. As Deaf1 advocate writer Lilit Marcus [herself a Child of Deaf Adults (CODA)] notes, the Project Runway cast and crew did not exclude Justin from the conversation and interaction: they truly listened to him and “clearly got a quick lesson in Deaf etiquette” (Marcus, 2013).