Which is why I was worried when my colleagues suggested I attempt to spend a whole weekend without them. I had a whole couple of days of good TV-watching planned – not only was there a new Louis Theroux documentary about the occupied West Bank, but I also wanted to watch a couple of upcoming episodes of zombie apocalypse drama The Last of Us (perks of the job). The former would feature interviewees with accents I might find hard to understand, while the latter’s main character, Ellie (played by the fantastic Bella Ramsey), is a bit of a mumbler. This, I thought, was going to be awful.
Netflix’s new subtitle option removes any non-dialogue text (Photo: Netflix)
Netflix has noticed the trend, too: a recent press release from the streamer reported that nearly half of all viewing hours on US Netflix happen with subtitles on. In response, the streamer has created a new type of subtitles, which only shows the text that corresponds to actual dialogue. There’ll be no more “[phone buzzing]”, “[tense music]” or – in the infamous case of Stranger Things – “[tentacles wetly squelching]”. These are subtitles for those who don’t need them for accessibility reasons, but, like me, simply like them.
After turning them off, I noticed something unexpected. I was paying much more attention to what Ellie and her pals were actually saying. I thought reading subtitles improved my comprehension, but is that just a fallacy? Without the text to help me, I found myself worried I’d miss something – and so paid more attention.
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Louis Theroux’s documentary was a different experience. My boyfriend was born deaf, and while he can hear well thirty-something years later, he finds subtitles more useful than most. I felt mean turning them off for our Sunday night viewing of The Settlers and dutifully turned up the television to compensate. It was loud. And that still didn’t solve the problem of fully understanding the strong Israeli accents of the nationalist settlers Theroux was interviewing. This time, my viewing experience was definitely diminished thanks to the lack of subtitles. I’ll have to watch it again.
For now, my subtitles are firmly turned back on. I pity those who find them distracting or that they ruin comedic or dramatic timing (ridiculous: there are mere milliseconds between the end of a joke and reading the corresponding subtitles).
With realism and “mumblecore” – a subgenre characterised by naturalistic acting and hard-to-hear dialogue – becoming more and more popular, watching with subtitles is the only way to enjoy television properly, whether you need them or not. In other words, I’m watching TV better than you.
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