71% of cinemas around the UK are not putting on subtitled screenings of family films.
New analysis undertaken and published by the National Deaf Children’s Society has highlighted a sizeable issue in British cinemas, that are failing to adequately support hearing impaired and deaf children.
According to said analysis, 71% of cinemas around the UK didn’t put on subtitled screenings of popular children’s firms. This study was undertaken in the opening weeks of the school summer holidays, when films such as The Lion King and Toy Story 4 were setting box office tills alight.
Around 581 cinemas were showing the top 11 children’s films released for the summer, but only 171 of those sites had at least one single subtitled screening.
In the case of Toy Story 4, a film featuring a character with a cochlear implant, Your Local Cinema reported that still fewer than half of cinemas had at least one subtitled screening of the movie in its opening week.
The Lion King has been deemed the most inclusive family film of the summer, but even then, only 48% of cinemas had at least one single subtitled screening of the movie.
Helen Cable, of the National Deaf Children’s Society, said that “young people are being denied a key part of their childhood because cinemas are refusing to put on subtitled performances”. She added that “it’s unacceptable that deaf children across the country struggle to access the cinema”.
You can read more on this at the NDCS website, here.
Image: BigStock
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