D.C. passes movie theater open captioning requirement
Alex (Daily Moth): Last week, the Council of the District of Columbia unanimously passed a bill that requires movie theaters to provide open captioning for most film titles several times a week.
[Full-screen image showing the first page of the bill]
With the mayor’s recent signature, D.C. now joins Hawaii, New York City, and Maryland in regions that require open captions.
Erik Nordolf, in the past, started a “DC Deaf Moviegoers” group.
[Full-screen image showing the Facebook page of the “DC Deaf Moviegoers & Allies]
He started it on social media to provide information and emails on local film showings with open captions to those who lived in the D.C. metropolitan area. While he was doing this, he worked with Reema Bogin and Brianne Burger and others to push for an open captioning bill.
They faced opposition from the National Association of Theatre Owners and some of their efforts were stalled by the pandemic, but now they’ve come out victorious.
I will show you remarks from an interview with three of them. First, Erik will explain what’s in the bill.
Erik Nordolf: I’ll give a summary. Every movie theater must provide open captioning for all movie titles during several showings. Most of them have to be during prime time, which is either weekends or weeknights. When will it go into effect? I’m not sure, probably in the fall, if not sooner.
Brianne Burger: The bill — we are excited about this part — has enforcement. Lots of bills typically don’t have an enforcement portion. So if a law is passed, how can we prove that others have to comply? So the D.C. Council decided to add this section. It is assigned to the Office of Human Capital, which is an office in the D.C. government. They must provide a complaint process. So that’s where we are very excited. We can see what happens if a theater is not providing a certain amount of showings in accordance with the bill. Or if they advertised that a film would be open captioned and end up not providing it. Where can we complain? There will be a process with the D.C. government.
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Alex: I asked them to explain what kind of impact they think the bill will make.
Reema Bogin: You never know when you may lose your hearing. You never know when. Maybe it’s some other disability. You never know when you’ll need accommodation. And I grew up with normal hearing and I never thought I would need captions. But then I lost my hearing. Now I can’t watch a movie without captions. Around fifteen years ago, I was crying while I was watching a movie. It was the “Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” As I was watching, I just couldn’t pay attention. You just never know in your lifetime. It’s not only older people that have hearing loss. Many grew up with it. So we are trying to convince others of the importance of not only serving deaf or HOH because you never know when you have hearing loss.
Erik: I think films are so important. It’s a part of the conversation. Many hearing people watch films all over the country and stay in touch and share their experiences. Deaf people need to be a part of that. I didn’t really feel like a part of that because the technology and devices were unsatisfactory. With open captions, it’s a freeing experience. I remember during the early days of open-captioned films, during “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” someone from New York City flew to D.C. to watch it with open captions. Wow! Hopefully, they don’t have to fly here anymore! New York City has a law now. But I want all the Deaf community in the U.S. to have open captioning laws.
Alex: Nice. They expressed gratitude to the D.C. Council for being open-minded and willing to work with them to get this bill passed.
Brianne: We are definitely inspired by our persistence to get this through. So now we are not just “all done.” We want to help other states. So if they are interested, they can feel free to reach out to us. We’re happy to help figure out how to work with their state legislatures and representatives. Figure it out. And we are seeing changes in the NATO organization as well. They seem to be more open to considering other options. I’m trying to be optimistic here! It really does take a community working together so I definitely hope that Virginia and other states will proceed.
Alex: The bill should go into effect sometime this fall.