Why Closed Captions Are Great

By Ethan Jacobs

When I was a young boy, my father often used subtitles whenever we watched movies because he was hard of hearing. Take in mind, he wasn’t deaf or anything, he just really liked a lot of British movies and films. It’s not a matter of ignorance, rather lots of dialects can be hard to decipher. Guy Ritchie films in particular have acclaimed comedic attention for their borderline unintelligible character accents. Subtitles allow us to understand and fully appreciate what's being said.

So what is there to feel strongly about here? Well, I’ve met a lot of people who hate subtitles. Some people will watch foreign films with…dub. To me, there is nothing worse than watching another country’s film or show and listening to it in a cheesy dub of your own language. Why does that bother me? Because the original actors often put in so much feeling and emphasis in their characters, that by getting some random american to just try and match their lip movements, a lot is lost in translation. This applies to all dubbed foreign media, in entertainment that is. With subtitles, you can appreciate the emotion actors and actresses put into their characters even if you can’t understand what they’re saying. Let’s take Squid Game for example.

Despite watching Squid Game about five months after its initial relevance, I really enjoyed it. I found the acting to be especially superb for a K-Drama, given it was more or less my introduction to that country’s entertainment industry. What bothered me was seeing the Squid Game dub, which blew up on social media for its comically bad acting. It disgusts me how many people were put off by Squid Game merely because the dub quality was poor. Maybe if the American people could read, they could appreciate television and films in the tones and voices they were meant to be spoken in.

While this isn't a Squid Game review, I will say something. Once they introduced the “VIPs” who were overdubbed by Americans, the acting quality took a huge plunge. The overdub of these characters, since they were intended for a Korean audience, really hindered the quality of the last few episodes. That’s what kind of difference keeping television shows and movies true to their native languages can make.

The last point I’d like to make for subtitles is that they actually help you learn. They helped me learn at least. My vocabulary is decent for my age, and I attribute most of it to what I’ve learned reading subtitles from all the shows and movies I’ve watched over the years. Hearing intelligent conversations and how complex words and phrases fit in is so much easier to comprehend when you can read it at the same time. Not to mention, you also see how these words are spelled. Even if you don’t care, subtitles will engrave word spellings into your mind. In some ways, they are the ultimate education tool for making reading engaging. I know subtitles have helped me improve a lot of my language skills, and if you’ve never tried them, I highly recommend giving them a shot. A lot of people who hate subtitles simply can’t read fast, but that should never stop you. My message is that they help you learn and read better, so if you can’t understand them at first, you’ll get it somewhere along the line.