Subtitles

Written by Santi Daza

To start, I’m giving a warning about the subject. While there’s nothing dangerous or threatening, it’s a very serious and controversial topic. Now that I gave the warning, I’ll continue.

Subtitles.

Subtitles aren’t the standard. To turn them on, you need to go to settings or language and push a button in order to put them on. Normally, movies and shows don’t show any subtitles or words. However, I’m here to convince you why you need to turn on subtitles.

First, subtitles help with your comprehension. People nowadays put something on in the background and occasionally pay attention. With subtitles on, you are able to read and understand the whole situation and dialogue. In other cases, the actors’ dialogue can be barely hearable, as in movies such as Christopher Nolan’s Tenet. In Tenet, the music and background sound make the dialogue hard to hear, which many people complained about. In movie theaters, you wouldn’t be able to do anything. However, subtitles would save your experience on streaming services.

Next, subtitles can help others. If a movie theater had subtitles, certain groups would benefit from them, such as the deaf community. Subtitles come straight from the script, allowing viewers to grasp a better understanding. In certain situations, subtitles could change a stranger’s day. In restaurants, there’s typically a TV turned on to some movie channel. The TVs always have almost no sound, as the restaurant needs to have a balanced sound for all the customers. With subtitles, any customer could benefit and understand what’s going on on the screen. Their whole experience would change from a single action; turning on subtitles.

However, the best thing about subtitles is that they’re multilingual. A clear recent example comes from the 2020 Oscar winner for Best Picture, Parasite. The movie changed history, as it’s a South Korean movie, filmed in Korean, that won the best Academy Award. Most people watched it with subtitles, and had they not had subtitles, they would not have been able to get any understanding of the best movie of the year. Subtitles allow for a translation into English, allowing a wider range of films to be available for the English speaking audience. English isn’t the only language available. There’s also Spanish, French, Chinese, and so much more.

Overall, subtitles are extremely helpful. They’re inclusive, allow for better comprehension, and help bring movies from all over the world to a bigger audience. I asked 100 random people, and only 63% used subtitles. I had over 10 comments from people saying, “Subtitles are bad.” Based on the survey, there’s a slight edge in using subtitles, which goes on to show how it’s still a debated topic. Overall, subtitles are extremely useful but still controversial.

image credit: https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT202641