Author: Robert Kingett

Netflix Excludes The Blind. Why?

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When I was a little kid, I had an excessive vocabulary. I knew what the word ‘superficial’ meant, and also even bigger words, like ‘garrulous’. But even with these words and countless others in my head, there was one that wasn’t—and that word was Accessibility.

Back when I was seven, many things were accessible, and if they weren’t, my grandmother would help make them so. Not being able to see, my primary way of learning was through reading, touching objects, and listening to explanations. Of course, all my other remaining senses came into play, but hearing and touch were, and are, my primary link to the world not constructed by books.

Even though I had never heard the word Accessibility, I was an early adopter of its concept. One day, my grandmother took me to a museum that was new in town. It was different than the ones we frequented, and I was very eager to feel exotic artifacts under my fingertips, and experience paintings through verbal descriptions given to me via headset. I eagerly speedwalked with my grandmother into the museum, my stomach full with butterflies over the soon-to-be.

When the tour started, I could sense the body heat of a dozen people beside me. I waited for my grandmother to take me to the artifact so I could explore it. She didn’t. I began to tune into the many exclamations beside me describing how wonderful the artifact was. Why was it so wonderful? I wanted to know too! I wanted to feel it and see what people were talking about. I soon began to cry, and people’s feet shuffled as they turned and stared at me. With steely resolve, my grandmother picked me up and pushed her way to the front of the crowd with my white cane dangling in my grip. When she reached the front, she ducked under the rope and placed my hand on the elegant statue carved with dynamic symbols. People started complaining that a sign said ‘Don’t Touch’. Soon, a stern sounding man cleared his throat next to me.

“Miss? I’m the manager here.” I felt the air whoosh as my grandmother whipped around. With slicing syllables, she told the manager, ”If you tell my blind grandson to take his hands off this statue, I will take every ‘Don’t Touch’ sign down and burn them all. I will then tell the police what I did and sue you for lack of accessibility.”

Seventeen years have passed since then, and I have heard and witnessed countless instances in which companies and people just don’t exert any will to include the blind and the visually impaired whatsoever, unless forced by law. The Americans with Disabilities Act was a huge breakthrough for our inclusion, but it didn’t merge us with the sighted world. People didn’t want to include us, so often we had to go to special groups, events, and even jobs for the blind. We also had to fight for education as well. Entertainment was, and still is an issue accompanying all the other accessibility barriers.

It took a law in 2010 to make Audio Description available on television. Before the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, we couldn’t watch movies, TV shows, or any visual media with audio description as frequently as today. Audio Description is as important to us as closed captioning is for the Deaf. It opens up a whole new mode of entertainment that we’ve never been able to experience before.

However, there are still a lot of companies that don’t want to offer it, and are not forced to by law. Many of these companies reside in the internet realm, a place the law hasn’t even scratched yet. Audio Description is available on TV, and more DVDs, and even more movie theaters. The law applies to the top 25 TV networks now but will increase. But even with all this inclusion, no Video on Demand service, such as Netflix and Hulu, has Audio Description.

I’ve wondered why Netflix won’t provide Audio Description, or even accessible interfaces so that our adaptive software can interact with their website and web player fully. I’ve examined this through all different angles, even finding out for myself the cost of describers, and other production costs. It’s not all about cost however. The BBC has shown that cost doesn’t matter when it comes to Accessibility, offering an Audio Description On Demand service through the BBC iPlayer.

It wouldn’t be hard at all to include Audio Description on Netflix. Two methods could be done to achieve this. Closed Audio Description, where the viewers would need to select a language track, requiring less bandwidth and less server space on Netflix’s part. There would definitely be downsides to this as well, such as that Audio Description wouldn’t be able to be available on every Netflix compatible device, such as the Nintendo Wii, as the Wii even has a hard time with closed captions.

Another way is to have a separate blind version of the same movie or TV show, like iTunes has it. But this will require that the film or TV show be uploaded twice. From a technical point of view, this would be the easier thing to do, but who knows, the servers might possibly buckle.

For years, the blind community has asked and even begged Netflix to make their site and service accessible, with accessible web design and Audio Description, but Netflix have said “No” repeatedly, and eventually the blindness advocacy groups just give up.

I refuse to give up though. Which is why I started the Accessible Netflix Project.

Our aim is for Netflix to:

Provide a Screen Reader-friendly experience to all Netflix functions on the PC and mobile devices, compatible with all Screen Readers.

Provide an easily navigable interface for the mobility impaired using adaptive technology.

Provide easy access to Audio-Described content for the blind and visually impaired on streaming services as well as DVD selections.

Regardless if it’s inconvenient or costly, Netflix should provide Accessibility solutions. Many blind people pay for a service they can barely use, whether they are a novice or advanced Screen Reader user.

It has been a long eight months since I began the project. So far, they have told us “No”, directly, seven times and counting.

Determined to have the freedom to enjoy Audio Description on my only window to the film and TV world, due to limited cash availability, I decided to ask them why they said no. The first time, they said that “we don’t have control over the content that makes the Audio Description, so we’re not the people who you should be contacting.” So, I started contacting studios for the next three months, often going through back door connections to get to producers, and explaining the situation. Seth MacFarlane, the producer of Family Guy, a show that has Audio Description on TV, was one of these connections. I wanted to make it as cheap as possible for Netflix, so I asked these producers if they would simply give the Audio Descriptions to Netflix at no charge. Many, including Seth, agreed to this.

I replied to Netflix with the fantastic news, and this was their response:

Hi Robert,

Thank you for being a Netflix fan and for being so passionate about making Netflix more accessible. At this point we have no immediate plans to add Audio Descriptions to our service. We continuously evaluate this and we will let you know if there’s a change, but don’t expect it to come in the near future.

I don’t understand why they’d say no. Even after contacting 56 different people in the company, they all said the same—don’t expect it anytime soon, even with the studio support.

It deeply disappoints and frustrates me that access to a service that’s so accessible to my wallet is impossible for me to use independently, simply because I require adaptive technology. I can’t even manage the site independently, no matter how many advanced keystrokes I learn or new Screen Reader tricks. Blind and visually impaired people shouldn’t be banished to outside sources to get described content. We are millions and millions strong, and our revenue would help grow Netflix. And, small aside, they’d surely be given many awards.

The ADA was meant to include and not divide. Blind people should have reasons to spend their income. We should be able to laugh with glee with our family, enjoying an Audio-Described comedy. We should be able to proudly call ourselves a Netflix customer. I will do whatever I can to ensure everybody gets past the unnecessary velvet rope and is able touch an accessible Video on Demand service. I don’t understand why Netflix doesn’t want to give us that inclusion, and I possibly never will, but I do understand one thing for certain—it should happen.

Reviewing in the Dark

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In a movie review, you might find fleshed out descriptions of the whizzing visuals on screen. After all, reviewers write what they see in a movie. And movies can have everything from vibrant camera work to dizzying effects to catchy credits with high-class animation. My attention, however, isn’t focused on these things, because I don’t see any of that when I sit down to watch a movie. I’m a blind film critic, and I evaluate different aspects of movies—word choice, tone of voice, dialogue, musical score, and storytelling.

To watch movies, I use a special service for the blind and visually impaired, now steadily growing in availability, called Audio Description, which describes key visual elements during the natural pauses between dialogue. Audio Description describes costumes, gestures, scene changes, and facial expressions. Personally, I pay especially careful attention to how the audio description describes a good-looking man. Being gay, my vital ear is always tuned in extra hard to a description of a hunky African American on screen who could potentially be my soul mate if I were lucky enough to actually come into contact with them. (For instance, Denzel Washington.)

Audio Description is both an art and a science. The process of describing a film is quite a long one. After the filmmaker finishes a movie, they send it off to whatever company they choose that describes movies. Trained describers watch the movie a minimum of three times before carefully compiling a script to match the pauses in dialogue. A writer writes out the descriptions, and when the script is completed, it and the movie are sent to the audio description production team where a description track is recorded. Once the process is completed, which usually takes about a week, the described film is sent back to the studio where they can distribute it to movie theaters, and later on DVD—if the studio even decides to put the Audio Description track on the DVD. Many don’t.

Because audio description is such a careful practice, there’s a lot about it to review and evaluate. How many words is the describer using? Is he using too many words when the music could’ve just as easily spoke for the actions? Does the describer have appropriate inflections? Is the vocabulary age appropriate? Are the words too simple or too complicated for the film? All of the above can really make a world of difference when a blind person is listening to a movie. If there’s a hilarious scene happening in a comedy and the audio describer keeps using complicated words to describe a simple witty action, then the Audio Description is not a good one. In this case, the description detracts the comedy effect, and it should be critically pointed out.

A lot of people don’t know about Audio Description—newspapers and magazines included. And so my pitch, resume, and writing samples have to be longer, because I have to make it very clear that I’ll be reviewing the same movie as everyone else, but I’ll be covering it from a different angle.

Once I’m on board, there are some things that are different and will always be different about how I operate. Usually, critics are anonymous. They show up at theaters unannounced, and have the ability to just pick any movie they want to see and go see it. I don’t have that luxury. I have to first make sure Audio Description is available. I could review a movie without Audio Description, but that wouldn’t be fair—I could miss what happened on screen at a very crucial point.

To find showings with Audio Description available, I turn to CaptionFish, a service that finds described and captioned feature films near your zip code. After I gather the information, including the date and exact time the described film will air, I have to call the theater to confirm that the online information is truly accurate. Once everything is cleared, I call ADA Paratransit to whisk me away on a door-to-door van ride to the movie theater (after calling in and scheduling a trip 24 hours ahead of time first). When I arrive, the manager issues me my reviewers ticket, and I head into the theater with my Audio Description FM headset on, ready to dissect the meaty goods of a feature flick.

But it’s often difficult for me to even get a reviewers ticket, if it’s a movie theater I’ve never been to before. It usually takes a host of phone calls to the manager—who then calls my editor, who then calls him back and explains my validity with the newspaper or magazine—as well as special accommodations as far as issuing reviewers tickets, since there’s no standard for Audio Description critics. This could take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, so it’s a good thing I’m a patient guy.

Even though life as an Audio Description critic can be logistically frustrating—what with barrages of telephone calls from movie studios trying to confirm if I’m really a critic, and minor frustrations with ADA Paratransit arriving early or late—I enjoy using my brain to dissect the unexpected, as well as shed some light on the reality of accessibility. And it’s all worth it to be able to do what I do.

The people whom I write for appreciate my unique angle, and I enjoy bringing it to the table. Through my reviews, people get a chance to experience a movie through different eyes. The reward is not in getting to see a movie before others, but in lending my appraising ears to the medium.

I very much look forward to posting reviews here at Smug Film!

The Blind Side Opened My Eyes

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When someone says they ‘learned something today’, I admit, I’m usually skeptical. Did they just memorize something, or did they actually take something away—i.e., did they develop an individual thought? Did their world shatter?

During my youth I didn’t believe that movies, with their overdramatic diction and flashy action scenes, could actually reach down in my soul far enough to teach me something. Movies weren’t there to do that. Movies were there to make me laugh at someone with toilet paper trailing out of their butt as they’re leaving the bathroom. Movies were there to allow me to soak in the hugeness of a destructive explosion. Movies were the pinnacle of mindless entertainment, and I saw them as nothing more or less. But then again, I didn’t really watch too many movies in general, because back then there wasn’t Audio Description, the service for blind moviegoers like myself that describes key visual elements in between natural pauses in the movie’s soundtrack.

Because of my lack of movie exploration, I did not learn that I was mistaken about the potential movies until years after graduating high school—2009, specifically. The movie that shattered all my preconceived notions was The Blind Side, which I managed to get an audio-described copy of from a friend in the UK.

The Blind Side is based on the true story of Leigh-Anne and Sean Tuohy, a husband and wife who take in a homeless African-American teen, Michael ‘Big Mike’ Oher. Michael has no idea who his father is, and his mother is a drug addict. He has had little formal education and possesses few skills to help him get along in the world. Leigh-Anne soon takes charge, as is her nature, ensuring that the young man has every opportunity to succeed. When he expresses an interest in football, she goes all out to help him, including giving the coach a few ideas on how best to use Michael’s skills. They not only provide him with a loving home, but hire a tutor to help him improve his grades to the point where he can qualify for an NCAA Division I athletic scholarship.

Before The Blind Side, characters in movies were interesting to me merely because their world was so far from my own. I was watching them through glass, looking in on events that were entertaining and different, but ultimately didn’t connect with me in any way. I’d watch with utter fascination as the actors and actresses on screen dramatized their way to very good climaxes and conclusion, but the experience didn’t stick with me. I enjoyed most movies, but I hadn’t ever met a movie that had broken through the glass and sat down next to me and became my friend. I’d never found a character that I will remember forever as though we had sat down in the park and shared ice cream together.

Given my past experience with movies, I went into The Blind Side assuming it was going to put on a show for me and then roll out of my head along with the credits. But from the minute I met Michael, I knew him. We both came from dysfunctional, abusive families, even though we were of different ethnicity. Both of us were slogging through a world of hierarchy where people looked down on you because of your track record with Child Protective Services. Right away, I wasn’t merely sitting on the couch listening to Michael walk in the rain at night, choosing to go with ‘momma’, or confess his deepest thoughts to her or the family—I was there with him, wondering why it took this long for me to meet my twin.

The realism had me from the beginning. It triggered so many feelings for me that I wept when all the happy parts arrived, remembering very vividly my own abused home, and how I managed to escape. Within the first half hour, it taught me that I didn’t have this kind of pain all to myself. Someone else was out there who had begged for things to be normal, begged for everyone to have a smile and not be so chaotic. This movie taught me that I was foolish for thinking I was alone, because here’s another person who has suffered the same kind of hurt I have. It taught me this lesson and I hadn’t even reached the 30-minute mark.

The Blind Side was telling me something, and I listened. I listened as the past splashed down my cheeks, as the movie patted me on the back and told me that the reason I didn’t find help and make it out of the home I was in quicker than Michael was because I didn’t trust people. And it taught me that anybody can find a family. I thought I was the only one who had to find someone who’d care about me enough to call me on my cell and wish me a happy birthday. I’m not. There are plenty of people out there just like me and Michael. I’m glad that this film was there to teach me that.

Comparing them side by side, this movie and my life, they follow almost the same arc. All the painful similarities that yank at my heartstrings are there, and all the beautiful moments of my happy ending as well. Watching the movie gave me a sense of peace. ‘Did anyone understand?’ I used to ask myself, as I drifted through my life, haunted by my past, thinking I was the soul carrier of nightmares. Now I know that many people do have these nightmarish things happen to them, and I wasn’t the only unlucky straw dealt a series of unfortunate events. I also know that my world, my past, is now on the big screen for people to see, and understand, and learn from. And, I learned that movies could be made like this, movie that truly showed us lives, not blew them up.

Everyone has a story that should be told. And telling that story will do a lot more than people believe, even if it’s not a big blockbuster hit. It will ground people, and even educate them. And I don’t think it even stops there. Letting these stories out into the world shows people that their hearts are needed somewhere. Telling these stories, even if it’s a hard-hitting tale without a fairy tale ending, will allow hearts to love again. It will bring people out of their heads and back down to planet earth. That’s what we all need in the final quarter, I believe.