Why Is Everyone Watching TV with the Subtitles On?

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/06/watching-movies-tv-with-subtitles/674301/

by sharkweek • 3 years ago

16 25 3 years ago

jwx48• 3 years ago

As a native English speaker, my brain has a strange habit of processing foreign-language films with subtitles seamlessly, while viewing subtitled English-language films/shows feels much more cumbersome. Now that I think about it, the English-language subtitles are more often than not closed-captioning, so there are descriptions of sounds in addition to the transcribed dialog. Maybe that's what throws me off.

throwaawaay1• 3 years ago

I'm from a country that uses subtitles for foreign movies, but in the last decade I have begun to activate subtitles for native movies as well. Good subtitles are not distracting and I sometimes even forget that they are there. It's a seamless experience for me.

Somwtimes I watch American movies that are missing translated subtitles and have to use English subtitles. These are often closed captions instead of normal subtitles. I think those can actually be distracting.

Unless [DOG BARKING] is an essential part of the story, they should just leave it. It often has no relevance to the story and is just added to fill an otherwise silent scene. A classic example is someone walking in a neighborhood at night, and the director felt they had to add some type of noise to justify their budget.

A person who does not have problems with hearing also does not need subtitles to be prefixed with the name of the character.

What you need is two sets of subtitles. If the streaming services insist on badly mixed audio, they should at least provide good subtitles for everyone.

I think the issue with American subtitles is that viewers are not yet used to them, and the producers don't have enough experience to make good subtitles.

When HBO started streaming in my country, the app used white text without any background... It's things like these that adds up to a bad experience. I could spend hours writing about them

Netflix also used to have subtitles that were difficult to read, so I assume it's due to the lack of experienced product managers/designers in this particular area

david9273• 3 years ago

This article would be fine but it tries to argue that subtitles lower the degree in which you experience a film and that the "film snob" take is to not have them if it's the same language.

I have never heard of this take before, and I'm not sure it exists. The author cites only one film creator when asking, "But what about art?!" and it's someone making their first TV series with Kate Mara as a predatory teacher. I'm unconvinced.

Any strong reader is absolutely capable of enjoying a film with subtitles in full. In fact, any film connoisseur knows that the greatest films are spread out across all cultures and is used to subtitles when enjoying great films. Which is what Bong Joon Ho is trying to say when quoted at the start of the article. He's not saying, "You might need subtitles for a Korean film," but rather, "Get used to subtitles so it won't interrupt the film for you -- and that will open up a rich oeuvre of great films which you can full experience and which you might be missing out on."

pimlottc• 3 years ago

Both of these things can be true:

1. You can enjoy and appreciate films with subtitles 2. All other things equal, subtitles take attention away from other visuals details of a film

SR2Z• 3 years ago

I'm kind of curious how "oeuvre" ended up in that translation haha

It seems like a really rare word and looking up the definition makes me think that the more idiomatic translation would be "world."

david9273• 3 years ago

I wasn't directly quoting him

fatnoah• 3 years ago

I literally can't pay attention to anything when subtitles are on. It's like I can only read or watch, but not both. My wife has a chronic perforated eardrum, so she almost exclusively uses subtitles since the volume she needs is fairly high.

MrDresden• 3 years ago

Skimmed the article, so am not sure if it mentions this, but I often use subtitles due to the incredibly bad audio mixing that seems to have been a trend in surprising amount of new releases over the past few years.

I am not a native English speaker, but do have near perfect levels in TOEFL tests so it aint that.

david9273• 3 years ago

The article talks about it.

scohesc• 3 years ago

I have a hard time paying attention to media - probably something to do with ADHD - I find the subtitles make me focus more on the content of the movie/show as it's a visual aid.

I can see how having subtitles on can be annoying as they can block important parts of the content, or just be generally distracting (like the article mentions, [DUCKS QUACK])

I've heard there can also be challenges with mastering audio for certain studios - mastering audio so that dialogue can be heard through tinny phone speakers while not replicating well on a TV or expensive sound system.

Dhaliaz2• 3 years ago

When subtitles block something that I want to see, if it’s tv I’ll just turn it up/down and they’ll disappear temporarily and mobile devices I’ll turn off until I can’t understand again. I noticed that U also miss descriptions of scenes without subtitles.

jondwillis• 3 years ago

For me, bad audio mixing, and generally I struggle to keep up with fast-paced conversation. I also misunderstand or miss Proper Nouns here and there without subtitles on.

Everyone is different. The brain is good at filtering certain things out.

Jemaclus2• 3 years ago

I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm deaf, so... Maybe don't be a snob about it, Atlantic?

catyass• 3 years ago

my dad was born 50% deaf in both ears. grew up watching everything with subtitles and now it's real hard to comprehend films without them, despite having generally fine hearing. wasn't interested in paying 80 DOLLARS A MONTH to read another article about how millenials are dumb/entitled/be doing weird shit. subtitles are great and useful. good for them that they don't need em

Jemaclus2• 3 years ago

Yup, 100% in the same boat.

iamwpj• 3 years ago

My viewing experience has improved so much since committing to subtitles that I just assume people who are "against it" are missing a decent chunk of the dialog.

I went to a ROMCOM in theaters and still couldn't make out the lines -- it's the mumbling and sound mixing. Without subtitles on an action movie...how do you hear anything the actors say?

gumby2• 3 years ago

What a dick. It's the viewer/audience's time and attention. If I want subtitles it's none of your business. If I want to skip over what I think are the boring bits that's my business (and fuck you David Lynch for supressing FF and and rewind on his DVDs). I I want to stop quit and do something else that's my business.

When I go to a museum I don't look at everything on the wall. Just the things I want to.

vlod2• 3 years ago

fuck you David Lynch for supressing FF and and rewind on his DVDs

Made me think, do artists have the right to limit the way their art is seen? I can imagine if an artist was doing an exhibition and didn't think the museum was doing their work justice (bad lighting/space wrong), they would refuse.

I've noticed when going to music concerts a great deal of people record the whole show via their phones and don't sit back and enjoy the live experience.

Sure, they can do what they want, but I doubt I would take their review of the concert seriously.

Back in the day, music albums were choreographed and it was always a pleasure listening to it without interruption or distractions. Yeah people would sit in their sofas w/o their phones and listen to whole albums of Pink Floyd!

Enter Apple/Spotify. I'm not sure if that happens to the same extent anymore. I think we lost something there. Disabling FF/Rewind is a bit draconian however.

gumby2• 3 years ago

Back in the day, music albums were choreographed and it was always a pleasure listening to it without interruption or distractions. Yeah people would sit in their sofas w/o their phones and listen to whole albums of Pink Floyd!

But I would always get up and skip the last song on the first side, a track clearly added for radio play that didn't fit with the rest of the album. My choice, not the band's.

marklubi• 3 years ago

I've noticed when going to music concerts a great deal of people record the whole show via their phones and don't sit back and enjoy the live experience.

Thanks to some of those people, we have some amazing fan compiled performances like Another Version Of The Truth: The Gift [1] from a group named This One Is On Us [2].

The NIN Lights in the Sky Tour was something to behold, and I had to go twice to be able to take it all in.

While I agree that you should live in the moment instead of behind a screen, we wouldn't have this without some of those people that want to memorialize it.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ik8xOL656GE [2] https://www.nin.wiki/This_One_Is_On_Us

vlod2• 3 years ago

It's standard practice for me to watch films w/ subtitles as the sound (as the article suggests) is all F-up.

I take my films seriously and my Mrs just bought ticket to 'Oppenheimer'. First question out of my mouth was "Is it in IMAX"? No, but it was on sale! Ugh. I re-iterated that Nolan produces movies for IMAX [0] with very good sound systems. Apparently only 30 theaters WORLDWIDE [1] are capable of showing that film in the correct format! Fingers crossed, it will be somewhat acceptable.

Inevitable with all of Nolan's films, I re-watch them at home with subtitles because I need to know wtf is going on. (Tenet was next to impossible without them).

[0] "Christopher Nolan explains best ways to watch a movie, which theater seats to pick" https://www.mywabashvalley.com/news/national-news/christophe...

[1] "Oppenheimer: IMAX 70mm Screening at Only 30 Theaters Worldwide" https://ymcinema.com/2023/06/05/oppenheimer-imax-70mm-screen...

clnq• 3 years ago

What a snobby op-ed.

j7ake• 3 years ago

It’s probably a similar reason why I enjoy many songs on YouTube better if I read subtitles when I listen?

You have much better comprehension of the dialogue if it’s both spoken and in text.

Comprehension defined as something specific: like how well you can recall dialogues from a movie X minutes since watching it.

Dhaliaz2• 3 years ago

Well this makes me feel very validated since I’ve had subtitles on probably since the mid 90’s, and I was always asked why do you have those on, are you hard of hearing-I was only in my 20’s but I also had a rail attached to my tub too! Lol Not only do I use subtitles but I like to change the color and font of them too.

Why Is Everyone Watching TV with the Subtitles On?

Related Stories