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Hard of Hearing and Going to the Movies: How do you deal with it?
Hearing Loss | Last Active: Mar 29, 2020 | Replies (33)Comment receiving replies
But not all movies offer the closed-caption capability, and I don't know how to find out which do unless I actually go to the movie theater, buy my ticket, and inquire. And all closed-captioning devices provided by theaters do not function reliably, but they only turn on (or fail to) as the movie begins. I gave up on seeing movies for those reasons. Wait for them to be shown on TV and watch with closed captions.
Replies to "But not all movies offer the closed-caption capability, and I don't know how to find out..."
I’ve experienced the same thing,bobbiefriend. However, the first time it happened, I marched to the counter and loudly said “This is not working and NOW I’M MISSING THE MOVIE I PAID TO SEE. THIS IS ADA VIOLATION!!!” Then, when the worker handed me another device, I refused to take it and demanded she come to the theatre with me to make sure it worked. She walked back and forth twice and finally got it set up right. They gave me a ticket for another movie. The next time I went to the theatre, I said (again, loudly) “I need a captioning device and I want someone to come to the theatre with me to make sure it works.” That worked well. The next time, I just told the worker that I’d had problems before and he told me that they had the system overhauled because of complaints. Since then, smooth sailing (though getting the thing into the cup and positioned so I can see it is always a challenge). Last time I went to movies, I saw two ladies who were getting their captioning devices and both spoke loudly saying they had previously had problems. I had to laugh.
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I agree. The ALDs at theaters are generally not good. Lack of maintenance and dead batteries are common in my limited experience. And if batteries are dead the staff present usually doesn't know where to find fresh batteries.
Even with fresh batteries the audio at most movies has so much sound effects that it makes the speech impossible for me to understand and follow the movie. My preference would be a separate sound track with the speech only delivered by induction loop. I'm sure acoustic sound in the theater would be more than enough sound effects for me even with occlusive hearing aids. That won't happen in my lifetime.
That leaves captioned (open and closed) movies. I still keep hoping that open captions become more accepted by the general public and offered more. If hearing people had to watch movies with the captioning devices generally available (no audio) they'd understand. It is good that ALDs in use now allow a lot of people to enjoy movies, but they don't help many of us. So for those of you who can enjoy movies - good for you. I'll just go do something else for entertainment.