British TV seems to assume that deaf people only watch television after midnight, when they put their "sign zone" on, most of the major channels BBC, ITV, C4 and a few cable ones do it.
I don't want to sound like I'm having a go at the deaf, but why in this digital age can't I turn off the big lump in a loud shirt doing the hand jive right in front of the section of screen I'm trying to watch?
Those that use "signing" are forced to stay up late at night to watch a limited selection of programmes, where surely as with subtitles you could have an on/off choice at any time of day?
Had to laugh when I noticed one of the MTV stations were doing it as well, the poor woman signing seemed to be having trouble with the rap lyrics they had her interpreting.
2 comments:
I've never understood how a signed prog or film is better/worse than a subtitled one. Maybe a deaf person could explain. Deaf people are treated as if they're stupid aswell as deaf, the BBC prog. "See Hear" was like a children's prog & really patronising.
Is a signed version of "Rogue Traders" at 4am really of interest to deaf people? It just smacks of politically correct inclusiveness, rather than providing a genuine service for the deaf. It would be interesting to get feedback from a deaf person on this.
I have Virgin cable and round about channels 853/4 they have alternative versions of BBC1/2, ITV and C4 described as BBC1AD etc the AD stands for Audio Description.
Now I'm not sure if this is future planning so that these can be all day signed programmes or it's for another reason? but at the moment they show exactly the same programmes as the original versions (as in no signing till after midnight).
Currently I would agree with your assumption that the signing is only included for political correctness, as the choice of programs is so limited.
Also subtitles are less intrusive and don't distract from the programme so much.
I have a deaf cousin who I haven't seen in a while so I'll have to ask him when I see him.
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