Whenever the movie theater experience returns from the pandemic, the new movie viewing environment during all of this for the disabled has at least been leveled.
While exhibitors love to preach the sanctity of the communal experience, that belief system often seems to neglect the fact that a portion of that community — 15 percent of the world’s population, to be exact — can’t participate. Those with disabilities who can’t visit a theater are often left to wait at least three months to see a movie. And when you’re already treated differently, any distance from normalcy takes on added significance. It’s understandable why people on social media mourn the loss of theaters, but imagine if you were never able to see a movie in a theater in the first place.
For the Disabled, VOD Means Seeing First-Run Movies When Everyone Does | IndieWire
I’ve mentioned the disabled before as another key benefactor for VOD (or PVOD). Also, small children who are unable — and bless their little hearts (proud grandparent here!) — to stay still through an entire movie and/or disruptive.
At a minimum the public service value and proper business compliance with American Disability Act requirements, it seems to me the theaters (listen up, NATO!), studios and VOD streaming services can properly take care of these folks.
Honestly, I’m not sure why this hasn’t been an exception to the theatrical window already. I’m guessing NATO is arguing that these new releases would be hacked and/or cut into the box office revenue, but that’s bogus. At a time when civil rights are front and center, we need also to remember the rights of the disabled.
Movies, Movies, Movies 
I am not sure exactly what VOD means, but if you are talking about streaming it does not level the playing field for the blind. In the blind community we have been talking a lot about all the streaming options popping up and how they don’t offer audio description. This feature makes movie watching accessible to us. Just recently HBO launched a new product and we were just talking about it on another list group about how it doesn’t offer AD. Another factor is some of these streaming products lack accessibility when it comes to basic functioning. Meaning that just trying to use the product itself is difficult and complicated. We are very concerned about how the movie industry is going and our desire to not be left behind as new innovative ways are explored.
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You raise great points. I don’t know if that 15% figure includes blind people or not. Thank you for raising that. VOD stands for Video On Demand. So, you’re saying that the streaming services are worse than the movie theater viewing experience for the blind?
This is a very important discussion. Perhaps my title isn’t as well worded as it should have been and inaccurate, I am willing to change that to something better. I didn’t write it that way to sensationalize the it, I did it to point out that once movie theaters reopen, what about the 15% of the world that is disabled … clearly some percentage of that 15% are blind, but I don’t know those figures. Do you?
I’m very interested in accessibility topics as it relates to movie watching so anything you’d like to share or if you even want to guest post something on the topic with all kinds of links to related topics on your blog, I’m open to all of that. It would be of great value to both our readers.
Please consider that as I’m far and away a novice at bet on the topic. Thank you so much for weighing in.
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I would love to get deeper on this as this is one of my passion projects-audio described movies. I think movie theater watching is wonderful and I personally love it! Especially with the right modifications for the blind. Streaming is great too as I do that with Netflix on a regular basis and love the ability to watch content from the comfort of my home. I love both actually! LOL! The key point is that both have to work properly. Both have to be accessible. This coming Friday I will be watching an audio described version of the Oscar winner Parasite and I am excited about it. I will be blogging about it but I am also a little sad that I am watching it months after everybody else. That movie came out last year but it was not audio described so when it did I couldn’t see it when everyone else did. That is not equal access. We will continue to talk more about this.
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I want to rewatch the black and white version of that film. I think from just an audio only perspective that would be a unique way to watch the movie as well. Let me know what you think. I liked Parasite, didn’t love it like everybody else, but I definitely that it was worth checking out and recommended.
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Well, I watched Parasite and it was a very good movie, I mean the story line was very ingenious. But the audio description was hard for me. Because this was a foreign film with English sub titles there was not much room between the dialogue for description. The person describing spent the majority of the time reading the sub titles and not much else. I got a little confused with the characters too. But I did do some research before and after so that was helpful.
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