An amusing video editing gig b-side and some YouTube success has led to a new, very timely kind of political cartoon, one that makes some sense out of the babel of the political carnival by giving politicians words that aren’t exactly theirs. That’s not novel — speechwriters do this all the time — but Bad Lip Reading rejiggers the content to fit the form: hot air and nonsense rendered as candid admission, frank talk, bold vision.But it was never meant to be political and it still isn’t, its anonymous 20-something creator told WaPo. The whole thing was inspired by trying to imagine what reading lips was like for the author’s mother, after she went suddenly deaf a few years ago.Several years ago, my mother suddenly lost her hearing. She was in her 40s. In a matter of months, she went from having perfect hearing to total and irreversible hearing loss in both ears. That kind of loss would be terrible for anyone, of course, but she was a musician and a passionate lover of music and language. So, it was incredibly traumatic for her. And it was extremely difficult to watch her go through that loss. But one thing I found so amazing was how quickly she learned to read lips. She was astounding. The brain is capable of amazing things when it is left with no options.
It was fascinating to watch her pick up this new skill, and it became absolutely vital to her. I found that I sometimes started watching TV with the television on mute … to try to understand what her world was like.
I’d try to understand what the people on screen were saying by reading their lips, but I was just terrible at it. I would occasionally pull out isolated phrases, but they were sometimes so bizarre that I instantly knew they were wrong. And that just made what my mother did even more amazing.And now the campaign trail is also even more amazing.Bad Lip Reading: Rick Perry’s “Strong” ad – watch more funny videosviaWaPo.
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