Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Do deaf people enjoy films more or less?

Lately I've been watching films on the treadmill, which drowns out almost all other sound. My only solution is to watch with subtitles, which produces both expected and unexpected results.

  1. Character subtleties (even not-so subtleties) are mostly lost. Imagine watching Darth Vader or HAL without hearing the actor's voice.
  2. Musical cues are completely lost. Goes without saying.
  3. Cinematography and other visual cues are enhanced. If you're not listening to anything, your other senses are, by necessity, more focused.
But unexpectedly, I pay more attention to dialogue when watching films with subtitles. This helps me follow the plot more dutifully, and get more out of the script. Not out of the film, mind you, but out of the script.

To put this all another way, bad soundtracks and bad acting jobs are eliminated, but so are brilliant soundtracks and brilliant acting jobs. All films are scored somewhere between 2-1/2 and 3 stars. There are no four-star films, and no bombs. Those who can hear enjoy Last of the Mohicans more. The deaf enjoy White Noise more (no irony intended).

And since Hollywood produces more of the latter than the former, I would say that, yes, on average, the deaf enjoy films more than the rest of us.

(Obligatory external link here and here: "The Moral Obligation to be Intelligent," parts one and two, respectively.)

No comments: