Marlee Matlin Speaks Out: Help Deaf Parents Go to the Movies With Their Kids!

from famecrawler:
Marlee Matlin Speaks Out: Help Deaf Parents Go to the Movies With Their Kids!
Posted by shanaaborn on June 1st, 2012 at 2:28 pm
Marlee Matlin Speaks Out: Help Deaf Parents Go to the Movies With Their Kids!

Marlee Matlin is an advocate for issues affecting families who are deaf and hard-of-hearing.

This summer, most of us parents will be answering our kids’ cries of “We’re boooooorredd!” by checking the theater listings for screenings of the latest blockbuster films. It may be pricey to go to the movies these days, but it’s still a good way to beat the heat and keep the young ones entertained for a couple of hours.

But for Marlee Matlin, it’s not quite that simple. She, along with the 35 million other Americans who are deaf or hard of hearing, often have trouble finding a film they can enjoy along with their families.

As she writes today in the Chicago Sun-Times, theaters showing captioned versions of movies may be located miles from home. “Even more puzzling, the screening times don’t make sense: 11:00 AM, 10:45 PM,” she says. “Somehow, popcorn before lunchtime doesn’t taste as good, and 10:45 PM for this mom and four kids is out of the question.” (Her children are not hearing-impaired.)

What’s even more infuriating is that it doesn’t have to be this way. Sony and Regal Cinemas have developed special wi-fi glasses that show captions within the lenses when used at movies with digital formats. “But Sony is only making 500 pairs a month,” Marlee explains. “At that rate, I might be able to see Men in Black 24 when it comes out in 2019.”

As celebrity spokesperson for the National Association for the Deaf, Marlee frequently helps raise awareness of issues and inequities affecting people who are deaf or hard of hearing. The picture here, for instance, was taken this spring, when she traveled to Capitol Hill to promote the push to get phone companies to provide “text to 911? service, which would allow deaf users to send text messages to emergency services.

Maybe we can help spread the word and urge studios and theater chains to make captioned screenings and caption glasses more widely available to the millions of families who need them. “[N]ot only would it be the right thing to do,” Marlee says, “it would mean a lot of tickets and $5 popcorn they could be selling.”

Brava, Marlee!

Ultimate Caption FAIL

This is what happens when you play the game Telephone with YouTube auto-captioning. (Editors’ note for the hearing-impaired: Not really, as it’s scripted and the actors are speaking the dialogue as shown. But at least they’re highlighting some of the problems with auto-captioning.)

Netflix tries to ride out wave of customer anger

When Netflix first introduced their streaming download feature, I complained about the lack of captions and was told I didn’t have to use the streaming option as it was a “free bonus” to my account. (And since when has it been ok to exclude deaf and hard of hearing folks from “free bonuses” either?) But now that Netflix has announced fees for streaming download service, they no longer have an excuse to discriminate. From SFGate:

Then last month, the National Association of the Deaf filed a lawsuit against Netflix claiming the company is in violation of the federal Americans with Disabilities Act because most of the movies and TV shows available for streaming don’t have captions.

Netflix has said that about 30 percent of its “Watch Instantly” videos have captions and that the company hopes to have 80 percent captioned by the end of the year.
Petition for captions

But Sebastian St. Troy, a hearing-impaired consumer rights activist from Texas, said Netflix has still not done enough. St. Troy’s online petition drive to push Netflix to include captioning gained more momentum last week, in part because of the publicity over the subscription fees.