Ahmed Khalifa: Subtitles please – comic book characters are impossible to lipread

Ever since I was a child, I have been defiant and keep insisting that I should go to the cinema even if I have no idea of the story line and can’t hear exactly what is being said. 

“I’ll just go and watch the action scenes” I said to myself. “I don’t need to hear what they are talking about”.

“Or I can just pick out a few of the spoken words, put two and two together, and figure out the story line myself” I also said to myself.

Yes, I was that naive.

So there I was, pushing myself and joining my hearing friends to go the cinema. And then we have a discussion about it afterwards, what we liked, what we didn’t like…like a film critic.

Watch Ahmed’s subtitled video here:

This is a challenge in itself, which is when the discussion turns to the story line or those moments when “I can’t believe he said that”.

Cue plenty of head nodding and just agreeing with that. What kind of film critic am I?

Over many years, there were a couple of points where I realised I’m kidding myself (I know, you’d think I should have known that many years before).

The first time was when I came to the realisation of how much money I spent on going to the cinema but not getting the full experience or getting my money’s worth. Hundreds and hundreds of pounds spent on (over-priced) tickets, only for me to get less experience than all the other cinema-goers and almost feel like I’ve been cheated out of my money.

Then there was another point where I pretty much decided to stop kidding myself and stop going to the cinemas altogether.

There were two movies I really wanted to see this year; Avengers: The Infinity War and Black Panther. When you hear your friends rave about it on social media, you start to get a bit of FOMO and insist that you go. I was aware of the challenges that comes with attempting to listen to comic book characters, but that’s how I am; determined.

So I eagerly booked the tickets. Obviously, there were no subtitled screening available on Friday night (there just never is), but I bought my tickets anyway as I was adamant that I was going to watch it and enjoy myself.

There I was sitting down, the movie started and of course, there are new characters, which meant new voices to get used to.

That’s never an easy task but I’m not exactly going to leave the cinema.

But instead of enjoying the occasion, what followed were two stressful and mentally exhausting experiences. It’s hard enough trying to understand movie characters. But it’s a completely different story when they are masked characters…and there were plenty of them.

On both occasions, I came out of the cinema mentally and emotionally exhausted due to concentration fatigue (yes, that’s a thing), clueless to what happened and distressed that I did not enjoy either movies. It was impossible to follow the plot and I was frustrated at the cinema for not making it an experience that I, and many other people, have signed up for.

The masked comic book characters had beaten me. It is as if the cinema is Batman and I’m the Joker being beaten down at the hand of those who are powerful.

This is why it’s bit ridiculous when people scoff at the problem and either say 1) “subtitles ruins the cinema experience” or 2) “just lip-read and you’ll be fine”.

First of all, we don’t need every single screening to be subtitled. We require more subtitles and at appropriate times. Because guess what? Not at all of us can go to the cinema during the day for that one subtitled-screening of the latest movie, because we have jobs (shock, horror, deaf people have jobs!). Not all of us want to a travel long distance just to watch a movie because the local ones don’t have any subtitles.

And why should we not have the opportunity to enjoy a movie like you do.

The second point about lip-reading is just ridiculous. Have you tried lip-reading Spider-Man, Iron Man, Black Panther, Deadpool, Ant-Man, Bane, The Predator, Sauron?

Go on, give it a shot.

And it doesn’t have to be Marvel and DC Comic characters either.

V for Vendetta, Stormtroopers, Darth Vader…they are just as bad as each other.

And if you are into horror movies: Hannibal, Scream, Halloween, Friday the 13th.

I think you get the point.

This experience alone is another reason why the campaign (by Limping Chicken) for all UK muliplex cinemas to dedicate one screen to subtitled screenings for deaf people is an important one for the 1 in 6 people in the UK who have some kind of hearing loss.

As more and more masked crusaders are appearing in cinemas, using the excuse of lip-reading is not that simple anymore. We have already seen young children campaigning outside their local cinemas for more subtitled screening and deaf celebrities sharing their own experiences of what going to the cinema is like for them.

And even if we can lip-read those who are not wearing masks, many characters are difficult to understand for the d/Deaf community as it is.

My experience with listening to Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War was challenging enough and he wasn’t wearing a mask. But the tone of his voice is not exactly something you are used to hearing.

The same goes with the infamous “I’m Batman” (I still can’t get my head around the tone of that voice).

So if you feel like you can support the campaign, please feel free to do so here.

But I am also curious to know whether you had the same experience as me. Did you experience challenges as I did when attempting to lip-read characters in the cinema or even on TV? Were there any characters which were more challenging than others for you (like masked characters)?

Let me know in the comments below.

Ahmed Khalifa is an experienced digital marketer and runs his own business where he helps other small businesses to make the most out of their WordPress website and grow their traffic, engagement and conversion.