Transcript
The Real Helen Keller
September 1999
Part 1
Janet K Marcous: And when most people think of Helen Keller, it’s like she was a wonder woman in a way, and she was very sweet and very nice, like a little angel who would sit and read her Braille books, very demure, very religious and spiritual. She was a safe person for society to look at.
Pump scene from The Miracle Worker/ sync sound
Allison Bergmann: I think that most people know of Helen Keller as a disabled seven year old in the grips of an oblivion of no sight, no sound, rescued by an incredible teacher at a well at the age of seven, brought out of that oblivion through language and through the use of language, and then it disappears from people’s minds. It’s a shame because she did live eighty more years, and people don’t realise that, she just seems to be a perpetual seven year old at the well.
Film/sync sound: “Yes. Oh, my dear.”
Narration: Helen Keller is still celebrated as the deaf blind child who triumphed against the odds. She became an American icon. It was a role that Helen Keller never chose and she battled against it all her life. Being the world’s most famous disabled person both opened doors and imprisoned her…
