Why can’t deaf people enjoy the movies like anyone else?
This article originally appeared in February 2016 on Konbini.
I’m tired of handicapped people being treated like second-class citizens in Europe.
So here I am watching Star Wars at a movie theater in Los Angeles. I’m deaf. I wear hearing aids. I hear the whoosh of fighter jets and the buzz of light sabers. And I can follow the plot with a captioning device. The plot sucks. But hey, at least I don’t have to take anybody else’s word for it.
I live in France. I love France. And I love movies. But the only movies I’ll see are foreign movies with French on-screen subtitles. French-language films are never captioned.
Why on earth are European countries so backwards about accessibility? It sure isn’t for lack of money. This is Europe! Our health care systems makes US Medicare sound like a joke. But accessibility? Oh please… !
There are over 500 000 deaf people in France that can’t hear well enough to follow dialogue on screen. And over 4 million in Europe.
And don’t tell me captioning is just a deaf thing.
A social and economic imperative
The European mindset tends to relegate accessibility and inclusion to a medical issue. Sure, my health is involved. Especially when I’m about to blow a gasket out of sheer maddening frustration. But accessibility is mainly an economic and social imperative.
When you’re denying millions of people access to information, education, transportation, work, culture, and social integration then you’re creating an entire subset of a population who are marginalized, dependent on special assistance and subsidized living. It is a societal catastrophe of mind-boggling proportions. A study by Hear-It Foundation has equated this to a € 213 billion loss to the European economy.
Whenever the subject of going to see a movie is raised among my friends, I instantly rule out seeing any French movies. I’ll only head out to see VOST movies: foreign films with subtitles.
In France, associations have long pushed for progress in captioning film and TV. The UNISDA (National Union for the Insertion of Auditory Deficients …here goes another medical connotation) reckons that by now 50% of French movies include subtitles. Which is a good start.
The problem comes from theater owners themselves. “While some of them play along by organizing screenings in VFST (Version with French Sub-Titles) at decent times of the week, others only provide marginal showtimes so as to not bother other spectators that don’t like the on-screen subtitles,” as Emmanuelle Aboaf explains to me. With Bénédicte Nguyen, the two young women created the website CinéST, which lists accessible theaters nationwide and their showtimes with French on-screen subtitles.
The selection is embarrassingly small. Just this month, you’ve got less than a dozen movies that are each shown only twice a week. Mostly at midday in mid-week. With two or three being shown during evenings or weekends. I’m not going to go see a movie on Tuesday at 1pm.
And if you don’t live in Paris, you’re out of luck my friend. Theaters times displaying subtitles are even scarcer outside the capital. Only 100 out of the 2,000 French theaters nationwide bother to provide on-screen subtitles.
Subtitling movies is a first step. Now lets make these captions available at every single theater for every single movie.
Guaranteeing equal access to culture
Since the start of 2016, some French theaters were showing two movies entirely (and only) available with on-screen subtitles: Faire l’amour by Djinn Carrénard, and J’avancerai vers toi avec les yeux d’un sourd by Laetitia Carton. The only two other movies to have been entirely subtitled are Marie Heurtin by Jean-Pierre Améris (2014) and Donoma, again by Djinn Carrénard (2011).
The subject is about deaf people and deaf culture. It’s nice. But I can’t help but cringe at the notion that only this kind of movie is available with on-screen subtitles at every screening.
I’m not deaf part-time. I’m deaf 24/7. I want to go see any movie, whenever I can, with my friends. Lets get to 100% accessibility.
Beyond the niche
Despite the long and incredible efforts of associations and prominent individuals to push for equal access, we still lag behind America by decades. What gives? France has equal accessibility laws. Nobody really cares about these laws. Class action lawsuits don’t work here, and theater owners claim a hundred excuses to not provide captioning.
May I remind you that French movies and film receive massive state funding? The CNC (the National Cinema Council) just doesn’t get it: requiring 100% captioning isn’t just going to benefit a few deaf and hard of hearing people. It’s going to help people the world over better appreciate French language and French culture.
Captioning isn’t useful only for deaf people. But also for seniors and for foreigners learning a new language. It’s actually the case in America, where the majority of people who turn on the captions on TV are expats and newly arrived immigrants.
And I also suspect a good number of folks turn on the captions so they can watch Saturday Night Live when their spouses are sleeping.
The American example
In the USA, captioning by movie theaters isn’t required by law. But many do it anyhow. With millions of deaf Americans, it’s also just good business sense.
In 2008 a US company released CaptiView boxes, which are individual devices mounted on seat cupholders. The boxes adjust to your eye level below the screen and display the captions. Many US theaters are equipped with these: it was an eye-opening experience for me.
In 2013 Regal Entertainment Theaters, one of America’s largest movie chains, decided to equip every theater with special captioning glasses developed by Sony. Why? Because one of the bosses at Regal has a son who is deaf.
When are UGC, Pathé, Gaumont, MK2 and the whole lot of European theaters be similarly inspired?
Sure, the CaptiView boxes are clunky and your eye gets tired from adjusting its focus from the screen to the box. The Sony glasses are embarrassingly large and the captioning experience gave me a headache. I was lucky I was wearing my contact lenses that day: I don’t want to imagine wearing those glasses on top of my glasses.
A French company has released an application that provides amplified dialogue and subtitles on your smartphone. A few theaters have accepted the app, but showtimes remain scarce. It’s not as useful as the CaptiView boxes, but it’s a start.
Promoting entrepreneurship in accessibility
A I wrote in a previous article, innovating for disability makes good business sense and opens doors to opportunities in other fields.
Innovation doesn’t start at the top. If we condemn these attempts, we condemn progress. Hopefully with a bit of help from Moore’s law, we’ll have something better soon enough. Something aesthetically and functionally more pleasing.
When I’m in France, I feel excluded as a consumer of cultural products. I go to the movies: I don’t understand anything. I turn on the TV: I don’t understand anything. The lack of accessibility is what excludes me.
It’s time legislators and regulators stopped shirking their responsibilities. It’s time French companies (most of whom are State funded anyhow) stopped shuffling their feet. Let’s get our act together for #inclusion.
