#Hbo max subtitles keep turning off movie
#Hbo max subtitles keep turning off full
#Hbo max subtitles keep turning off series

A war is raging in living rooms and bedrooms across America-a Great Subtitle War. I grew alarmed by the way subtitles seem to be creeping into our homes-an addictive substance like TikTok, which, by the way, deserves some blame for this shift, conditioning multiple generations to watch content with text plastered all over it.

Following the story is the most important thing, he told me recently when I asked him about it for this article, and if you’re getting knocked out of the story because you can’t follow the dialogue, then by all means turn on the subtitles. Surely a screen actor like Ken would be aghast at the notion of so many people choosing to miss so much of the detail and nuance that he builds into his performances? But I was too stunned to judge.īoth of them have spent their entire adult lives working in movies, television, theater-the visual arts, where voice and imagery are sacrosanct tools of communication with the audience. She said it almost like a confession, as if bracing for judgment.

#Hbo max subtitles keep turning off full

They watch almost everything now with the subtitles on, she told us, even Ken’s own show, which is full of rapid-fire financial jargon coming at you in about a dozen languages and a riot of accents.

#Hbo max subtitles keep turning off series

Ken is a cast member on the HBO series Industry, and Nancy works in New York theater production, and they’re both a bit older than us-squarely Gen X. Then, a couple of months later, over New Year’s Eve, my wife and I were about to start watching Don’t Look Up with another couple, Ken Leung and Nancy Bulalacao, when Nancy asked if we minded her turning on the subtitles. For the life of me I couldn’t understand how this didn’t drive everyone else crazy too. We left the subtitles on that night, and I noticed that even though I knew every word of Clueless (or maybe it was The Goonies), I was still reading along. This monologue was all internal, though, because I’m in my mid-40s and don’t want to sound like an old man shouting at a cloud.

They’re not for fluent English speakers watching something in fluent English. Subtitles serve an important purpose for people with hearing or cognitive impairments, or for translation from a foreign language. My soul can’t bear the notion of someone watching The Sopranos for the first time and, as Tony wades into the pool, looking down to the bottom of the screen to read. Because now, instead of focusing my attention on the performances, the costumes, the cinematography, the painstakingly mixed sound, and how it all works together to tell a story and transport me into an alternate world, my eyes keep getting yanked downward to read words I can already hear. All that came out, though, was: Why? They don’t like missing any of the dialogue, he said, and sometimes it’s hard to hear, or someone is trying to sleep, or they’re only half paying attention, and the subtitles are right there waiting to be flipped on, so … why not?īecause now I’m reading TV, not watching it. Now, I don’t like to think of myself as a snob-snobs never do-but in that moment, I felt something gurgling up my windpipe that can only be described as snobbery, a need to express my aesthetic horror at the needless gashing of all those scenes. “Oh,” the husband said, “we always leave the subtitles on.” “Oh,” I said as the opening scene began, “you left the subtitles on.”

#Hbo max subtitles keep turning off movie

Our younger neighbors had come over with their kids and a projector for backyard movie night- Clueless, I think, or maybe The Goonies. The first time it happened, I assumed it was a Millennial thing. This article was featured in One Story to Read Today, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a single must-read from The Atlantic, Monday through Friday.