Why I’m petitioning for more subtitled movies in cinemas

I’ve gone through 20 years of my life and only seen about 15 subtitled movies in the cinema.

During my childhood, teenage years and even now, I have missed out on many social outings with family and friends to the cinema. It’s really isolating and upsetting that we don’t have the freedom and ability to go when we want, like hearing people do.

So, I’ve decided to finally do something about it. 

A while ago, I wrote about ‘my fight to make cinemas deaf-friendly. It’s sad to say that since then, I haven’t seen many improvements.

I’ve found that most subtitled movies are either shown at off-peak showing times, or not available at all. I’ve been told that there’s no demand for subtitled films, and that other movie-goers complain when there are subtitles.

At first, this was a shock to me. I can understand that some people may be bothered by subtitles, but I feel like it’s not any different than when you watch a foreign film, plus, they don’t take up the whole screen.

Because those of us with hearing loss don’t have the luxury of going to movies whenever we wish, I decided to start a petition to deliver two messages to my UK cinemas:

1. There is a demand for subtitled showings
2. To encourage them to show more subtitled films at reasonable times, for example evenings and during the weekend, as well as throughout the day.

My aim is to work with cinemas in the UK to provide more reasonable subtitled cinema showings for deaf people. If you agree that there are not enough movie showings with subtitles, and you live in the UK, please sign my petition.

Bonus: Open Captions in Movie Theaters

Phonak hEARo Jessica Flores  also shares her thoughts on open captions in movie theaters:

Does your cinema play subtitled showings? I’d love to hear about your cinema experiences as a person with hearing loss, please comment them below.

• Author Details

Author Details

Ellie Parfitt

Ellie was born profoundly deaf, uses verbal communication, lipreads and wears Phonak Sky Q hearing aids. She is currently learning British Sign Language. Ellie hasn’t let her disability stand in the way and embraces every new challenge. Her deafness didn’t prevent her from achieving major accomplishments in her life, such as excelling in her education, previously working as a Marketing Executive and now as an Events Coordinator for a deaf organization, as well as blogging for Hearing Like Me. She is passionate about deaf awareness, campaigning for equality and helping others through her personal blog as Deafie Blogger.