‘Queer Eye’ co-host Karamo Brown advocates for deaf and hard of hearing viewers
Karamo Brown, co-host of the hit Netflix show Queer Eye, vowed to help deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers get the attention of Netflix.
Karamo Brown, co-host of the hit Netflix show Queer Eye, vowed to help deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers get the attention of Netflix after fans complained that the show’s missing subtitles changed the context of what they’re watching, reports the BBC.
Deaf and hard of hearing viewers haven’t had much success with captions while watching their favorite Netflix shows. But thanks to lodging complaints on social media and Brown’s help, Netflix seems to be taking steps to rectify the situation.
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Some complained that the streaming service was censoring content and watering down dialogue from several of their shows. Deaf fans noted that dialogue was shortened and that the service failed to caption foreign language inserts, “correcting” distinct dialects into standard English.
Rogan Shannon, a deaf Netflix fan took to Twitter about the captioning issue. His criticisms were shared widely and caught the eye of Brown.
“Reading everyone’s comments breaks my heart. I don’t know how much power I have but know, the next time I’m at Netflix I’m going to bring up this issue internally & wont stop until something changes. Deaf & HOH people should have the same experience as everyone else! #TypoFixed,” Brown tweeted.
Reading everyone’s comments breaks my heart. I don’t know how much power I have but know, the next time I’m at Netflix I’m going to bring up this issue internally & wont stop until something changes. Deaf & HOH people should have the same experience as everyone else! #TypoFixed https://t.co/AQ4emvgUBv
— Karamo Brown (@KaramoBrown) June 28, 2018
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Netflix Response
It didn’t take long for Netflix to take notice.
“We’ve heard about the caption issues on the service, specifically for @QueerEye. After looking into it, there’s lots of dialogue missing from the Fab 5 that shouldn’t be. We’re fixing it. In some cases, we do bleep incidental profanity from our unscripted series.
“Delivering a great experience to our deaf and hard of hearing members is very important to us. We’ve also heard from fans about a similar concern in Marvel’s Luke Cage season 2 — we’re looking into this now.
“Subtitles are created in different ways by different broadcasters, with many employing outside subtitling firms. They can be written manually and time-coded to audio, or are generated using dictation software or audio recognition.”
Now hopefully, everyone can just chill.
