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    Captions took over TV. Why can't they win the silver screen?

    by Sonja Sharp, Los Angeles Times Jan 15, 2024 5 minutes
    Jose Valencia, center, shown with his family, signs at a special open-caption screening of “Barbie.”

    LOS ANGELES — Nine-year-old actor Oceana Matsumoto signed emphatically to her father, posing for a snapshot in the lobby of Westwood's Regency Village Theater, where hundreds of fans had come to catch a special screening of "Barbie" in ASL — American Sign Language.

    The Dec. 14 event, which debuted Deaf performer Leila Hanaumi's interpretation of the bubblegum blockbuster, showcased the cutting edge of accessibility for the Deaf, with the dialogue relayed to viewers through both on-screen captions and sign language.

    "It feels good," Oceana said. "They typically don't even have captions [in theaters]."

    Though common at news conferences and concerts, ASL is rare in theaters and on streaming services, where the sign language interpreter can be included within the picture. Captions, by contrast, are old school — an accessibility function that first hit the movies in the Eisenhower era.

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