The world’s largest movie theater provides open captions NOW!
AMC theaters is the largest movie theater chain to provide open captions at 240 different locations in the United States (Treisman, 2021). AMC plans to continue moviegoer accessibility of closed caption screenings and electronic listening devices in many of its theaters (Treisman, 2021). Additionally, the movie theater chain will provide weekly showtimes for new releases to viewers who want to watch movies with open captioning (Treisman, 2021).
If you are interested in watching open captioned movies at your local AMC theater, you can download an app on the smartphone or check the website. If you are unsure whether your local area has an AMC theater, don’t fret! Click on the link at the bottom of this page to get help locating the closest movie theater in your state of residence. This comes with perfect timing for many deaf and hard of hearing Marvel Universe fans that want to watch the early November release, “Eternals” in theatres. The new Marvel movie includes deaf actress Lauren Ridloff, making her Marvel’s first deaf superhero (Treisman, 2021).
FLASHBACK TO THE PAST – 1990’s.
Many DHH are still looking forward to the day where they don’t have to advocate for themselves to watch unlimited videos with closed captions. And thanks to AMC, we may be halfway there! AMC theaters is the largest movie theater chain to provide open captions at 240 different locations in the United States (Treisman, 2021). Did you know “The Caption Center” was the United States’ first captioning agency (Allen, 2015)? Closed captioning became widespread with the rebroadcasts of Julia Child’s television show “The French Chef.” Julia Child was the first to rebroadcast a show with closed-captioning in an attempt to be more inclusive of deaf and hard of hearing viewers watching from home (Allen, 2015). The Federal Communications Commission was established in 1972 and is a non-profit national captioning institute that provides access to closed captioning (Allen, 2015). It wasn’t until 1990 that “The Television Decoder Circuitry Act of 1990″ went into effect, requiring all televisions to have caption decoders (Allen, 2015). However, television programs were still able to exclude captioning from commercials so long as they ran less than five minutes (Allen, 2015). They were also allowed to exclude captioning if the programs ran between the hours of two to four in the morning. Programs having the ability to opt-out of captioning has made it difficult for DHH individuals to enjoy watching television with captions for more than thirty years.
30 YEARS > PANDEMIC
Although closed-captioning has been around since the 1990s, it is not yet a standard for public places such as; movie theaters, bars, restaurants, and open public events. It is slowly becoming widespread and that is wonderful for people with disabilities. Closed captioning provides language acquisition, improves reading skills, and improves receptive skills. With the increase in online consumers over the past thirty years, it can be difficult for DHH consumers to enjoy things like social media to the fullest. Many online videos do not include closed-captioning, including those that come from media outlets. Since the pandemic hit, many people have opted to stay home and use social media as a digital platform to connect and share videos with others. However, a lot of these videos are inaccessible due to the lack of captioning included in them. Thankfully, some digital platforms like Instagram have responded to this influx of online users by providing captioning in the video creation process. Instagram will review the video and add captions as an overlay before users submit the final video for upload. Accessibility continues to evolve, reduce barriers, and provide opportunities for those with disabilities including deaf and hard of hearing consumers. While the pandemic brought about a lot of barriers and obstacles, it also helped digital platforms recognize potential changes they could make to some of their features for captioning, like Instagram.
What is the difference between open captions and closed captions?
Open captioning is always on the screen and the person watching does not have access to turn it off whenever they please. Differently, closed captioning can be turned on and off by the person watching the screen. Open captioning is beneficial for everyone since it is universally designed (UW, 2021). For instance, it’s helpful for noisy environments, people who speak a different language than the original content, and people who struggle with speaking (UW, 2021).
DID YOU KNOW…
People who work as stenocaptioners or captioners make more than $100,000 a year (Allen, 2015)? They are responsible for maintaining high quality captions without making any mistakes.
References:
Rachel Treisman. 2021. The world’s largest movie theater is adding open captions at 240 U.S. locations.
Scott Allen. 2015. A Brief History of Closed Captioning.
University of Washington. 2021. What is the difference between open and closed captioning?
