It used to be that I could head down to my local video store and hire just about any DVD to watch, and it would be captioned or subtitled. A few wouldn't be, but they would be mainly New Zealand movies. New Zealand doesn't have the law like the ADA (American Disabilities Act), so they don't legally have to put captions or subtitles on any of theirs. I believe NZ movies are good, but I wouldn't know as they deny me the ability to watch them.
I haven't hired any movies for a while, for a multitude of reasons. I'm saving my pennies, I've been busy, I've been away. However, I have come down with a terrible flu that is going around, and have no energy for anything much, so thought I would head down to the local video store (3 min walk) and hire some for me to watch on Thursday night.
I got two - Gone baby Gone, and Not My Life.
Gone Baby Gone was okay - it was captioned or subtitled, but the dvd was so scratched I couldn't see the end of it. So I put Not my Life in the player. It wasn't subtitled. thats okay - I will watch it anyway and hopefully lipread and pick up some sound. Useless. After half an hour of watching I realised I hadn't picked up one single word.
Back to the video store. I explained the problem and they said it no problem. Told me I could come back and get two more new release DVD's on saturday to watch when I had more time
Saturday - I still have the flu badly so walked down to the store and browsed the store. Every DVD movie I was interested in, I would turn over to look for subtitles - and they would have none. In fact - MORE DVD's were without captions or subtitles than those with.
It took me over half an hour to find two - Deception and Cloverfield that had captions- Deception was okay, Cloverfield was shit.
Anyway - what on earth is going on? - are the Video stores trying to cut costs by hiring cheap movies that have removed or taken the subtitles off?
I'm angry about this as I don't go to the movies - I wait until it's out on DVD so I can 'hear' them with captions, but now it seems even that choice has been taken away from me. I've left my email address at the store and have asked the manager to contact me. I will head up to another big video store not in my area to see if the same thing is happening there, or whether it's just my store. Regardless, it looks like I've got some serious lobbying to do, and it's days like this I wish we did have the ADA.
3 comments:
Yeah--that's really crappy!! I hate it when stuff like that happens. I'm not much of a rabble-rouser but the older I get, the more pissed off I feel about unfairness to the point I have begun rattling cages out of irritation. Good luck in the future with your dvd's
Hi ambling Rambler - I came across your site when i was looking up bsl and found some video's linking to your blog.
What an insight! - Thankyou! it sounds like you have a hell of a hard time on occasion due to the hearing problems/deafness.
event's i would not even have thought about (I have full hearing) are occuring on a "day to day" basis for you. Thanks for sharing as it gives me input into the difficulties deaf people have.
I have only just learnt to fingerspell and some very basic bsl i am looking to interact more with people to practice and learn.
any suggestion's please email me bonbonben4711@aol.com (stick "bsl" in the title)
i checked out your photo's too i love wildlife but im a hopeless photographer. The tai chi one i loved great image.
take care
Gary.
Ugh, that is not fun as I tend to have a hairy when I can't find something closed captioned. :(
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