Earlier this month, News10NBC reported government officials are leaning toward mandating major movie theater chains not just in NYC—but eventually statewide–to offer open captioned screenings for deaf and hard-of-hearing audiences.
Jerry Bergman, chairman of the Hearing Loss Association of New York State, stresses the importance of equal access–with regard to the disabled population who stand to benefit the most from this inclusive initiative.
“The spirit of the Americans with Disabilities Act is that people with disabilities are entitled to as near equal an experience as able-bodied people, and we’re not treated fairly right now by the movie theaters,” he said.
NYC has featured open caption screenings since 2022. Maryland and Hawaii have since enacted similar implementations.
In an instance of opting for headline languish before reading the articles, average moviegoers took to social media to voice their initial concerns. A large lot of them assumed that, should the push for open caption screenings across New York go through, all traditional screenings would subsequently be infiltrated by text on screen.
Rest assured, the phenomenon known as “Subtitlemania,” which has gained domestic steam during the streaming revolution, is not planning to quote-unquote “ruin” the theater experience for those resistant to even more change in an industry rife with much. There will be films screening in auditoriums with closed captions—a longtime practice wherein a party in need is provided device assistance; auditoriums with open captions—praise be, Alexa please play the version of “Hallelujah” that was in “Shrek,” and make it snappy. And auditoriums with neither.
Ticket prices have risen exorbitantly, that much is certain. But such is tolerable with each heated-seat recliner and MacGuffin Bar takeover at your local movie house, is it not?
Soundsystems are positively booming, too. But in the case of big-budgeted tentpole efforts that dominate most of the in-theater offerings in post-COVID times, sound design can sometimes become so massive, that dialogue in between action sequences can be rendered occasionally indecipherable.
Enter: the open caption alternative, where even a perfectly hearing person will have the opportunity to do what they regularly do on the homefront anyway, and catch a movie on the big screen equipped with live transcriptions of what all the characters are saying.
Gosh, what utter hogwash.
An eyesore, a distraction, an interference-laden enterprise at the onset, no one is debating this. However, if the pop cultural renaissance that was the arrival of “Game of Thrones” to HBO’s Sunday night primetime slate a decade and a half ago is any indication…
…people tend to get used to what they cannot firstly understand, but also cannot deny once they get the bloody hang of it. Much like Steph Curry with the 3-pointer, “GoT” changed the game. Open captions definitely existed before. Now? Believe it or not, they are mass-adored.
Subtitled acceptance is bliss, especially when it does not impact your viewing experience one iota, unless you invite it to; no one is saying “you must watch this film with open captioning or you can’t watch this film period.”
They are simply saying: if you would like to see this movie you fear you may only catch every other word within anyway because it’s jam-packed with too much bombastic superhero fights and all-encompassingly authentic gunfire to mask all the hybridized accents formed when too many Brits try to play Americans all at once, then you have sanctuary in the form of this ultra dim-lit auditorium.
You will go completely undetected by all those around you who need subtitles just as much as you declaratively do not, but nevertheless still want—and, to your surprise, now prefer—them all the same.