WATCH: Sparks fly on the court for a deaf athlete & his handsome opponent in this sweet short
This week, April 15 – 21, marks National Deaf LGBTQ+ Awareness Week, a project launched by the Deaf Queer Resource Center to uplift, support, and bring greater visibility to these multiply marginalized communities.
Every day this week, Queerty will be spotlighting a short film that focuses on deaf, queer characters—all of which you can watch right now.Today’s short, Ode To Pablo, begins with a familiar scene.A lone, young Afro-Latino man—the titular Pablo (Ian Vasquez)—is practicing shooting hoops on a basketball court when a group of three young men roll up, seemingly miffed someone’s playing on their turf.Subscribe to our newsletter for your front-row seat to all things entertainment with a sprinkle of everything else queer.Heading on to the court, the guys challenge Pablo to a game of pickup.
But because he has headphones in, they don’t immediately understand Pablo can’t hear them and is just reading their lips.It’s not until a drive-by shooting incident occurs that the guys begin to catch on.
The group’s handsome alpha, Julian (Louis Reyes Chavez), was the one to push Pablo out of harms way, and when the others begin to laugh at Pablo for being deaf, Julian’s the one to come to his defense.“My cousin came back from Iraq deaf,” Pablo sees Julian tell the others, hinting that he might have a sympathetic ally.When the two step aside, Pablo reveals to Julian that he uses headphones so that he “passes” in the hearing world.
