Over the summer, I attended a virtual panel at the annual American Council of The Blind’s annual meeting, where representatives were invited to discuss all the amazing futures their services had regarding audio description. All of this was met with lots of promises of making sure audio description travelled, seeking out audio description as often as possible to make sure that as many titles had audio description on their service that they could get, all without any concrete numbers or goals moving forward as to intended goals for each service. For example, no service promised to be 100% audio described by 2030, or anything like that. Just a lot of back patting, and no acknowledgement of their failures in this field.

Recently, I’ve been feeling discouraged, as I am trying to advocate for audio description as best as I can, and put out the concept that blind people do watch and enjoy film and television, when given accessibility to do so, and when that accessibility is quality. The hard truth is, that unless I’m part of a national lobbying group with financial backing, voices like mine, and the majority of the population on social media can just be ignored. if we cancel our subscription, will they even know why?

As streaming services have all increased their subscription rates in the past few months, none have seemingly made any broader of a commitment to sensible audio description choices. Just a few reviews ago, i pointed out that it was ridiculous that HBo had audio description for the Annabelle sequels, but not the original film. In fact, they have audio description for the entire Conjuring franchise, except that first film. Why? Why do they only describe Friday the 13th the 2009 version, as well as the original part 2, 3, and 7? Who decided to jump to 7 before describing 1 or 4?

Why won’t Hulu even bother to track down audio description for titles that have audio description clearly listed elsewhere, or had audio description during their theatrical release? They want more money from me, but that money isn’t going to help acquire the audio description for Cobweb, nor did it cause Hulu to day and date the audio description for A haunting in Venice, which is distributed by the Disney owned 20th Century Fox. Why do they still inconsistently treat FX on hulu debuts as some other thing, despite the fact that they are… exclusive to hulu.

Why is Netflix acquiring titles from Warner Bros without their audio description tracks? The Godzilla franchise was on Max earlier, and those films had audio description. They’ve been getting a lot of films from MAX, as well as HBO content, and that content had audio description when it left MAX. The same could be said for hulu, which is running True Blood, which has audio description on MAX.

Why did indiana Jones shift from Paramount to Disney without the audio description tracks? Why doesn’t Peacock acquire audio description for Universal titles that existed prior to the existence of their streaming service? how is it that we’ve allowed Starz to go all these years with no audio description, despite predating the existence of all streaming services?

i could go on and on. The fact that The audio Description Project even exists is offensive in many ways. It is born out of necessity, as the site lets people know where you can (and essentially cannot) watch a film with audio description. A title could be available everywhere, but only have audio description in one place. A24 has been pretty solid about getting audio description for VOD releases, and making sure their titles (for the most part) have audio description regardless of the service. Yet, they release physical media without the audio description tracks they already paid for.

The worst part is that these companies would rather act like they are operating as they should, which means they never directly address the why not. not that I haven’t been told “No” by a customer service agent when asking about the possibility of uploading an existing audio description track, but still. I think the most mind blowing example I can come up with was that i was shown where I could find audio description for season 1 of The Bear, yet it was not on Hulu at the time. It’s an American TV show, that only airs on hulu. where did someone even get the audio description track from? Why is Hulu providing someone else with the audio description track to an Emmy nominated original, but not using it themselves?

There are so many examples, and all of this is just ignored by ableist CEO’s and boards who do not understand the accessibility needs of their consumers, and do not seek the knowledge to provide equity among their subscribers. I pay the same money as everyone else, yet i do not have access to the content. most of these streamers have titles in other languages, and since i can’t read subtitles, when they host a title without even an English dub, they have hosted something that is 100% inaccessible to me.

So, do i call the customer service reps that earn minimum wage and work from home? That’s never gotten me anywhere. Do i write the people who work for the diversity, equity, and inclusivity offices of these corporations? Tried that. That doesn’t work either. “We are committed to diversity, equity, and inclusivity.” “But, will you be adding audio description which would create a more equitable experience for your blind and visually impaired consumers, while showing that you are, in fact, inclusive?”

“We are committed to diversity, equity, and inclusivity.”

Sounds like a No to me. Why is it that these multi-billion dollar corporations are even allowed to brush us off? Because our legislation is lacking. And in this political climate, where words like diversity, equity, and inclusivity, are bad words, it really doesn’t seem like the time that anyone, from the far right to the far left, would be championing this cause.

Do we fight with our words? Well, unless you are a social media influencer, I really don’t think they’ll notice. Do we fight with our wallets? It makes sense, but also by not paying for something, we lose the right to complain about it’s lack of something. At least by saying we are active customers, it gives us a leg to stand on, otherwise, it’s like going to a school board meeting when you don’t have any kids, and don’t work for the school system. You might be very concerned, but where is your skin in the game?

I don’t know what the right or wrong answer is, but after seeing a conversation today started with good intentions of letting a community know the rules by which it should operate, it made me realize how easy it is to tell the small fries of the world to get in line, to follow guidelines, and not color outside the margins. But, the only reason any of that exists, is out of necessity, because we cannot seem to get studios and distributors to understand the inequity they continue to feed us every single day they apathetically can’t even do something as simple as acquire a known audio description track, or the lack of pride they have in their own films being shopped around and those experiences being diluted, because they don’t require that all films produced and distributed by their company to be accessible. Always. everywhere.

I feel like I live in a world full of doors, but only a few of them have handles. i really want to know what is behind the other doors. i can hear people on the other side, and they seem to be enjoying themselves, and I want to enjoy that too. I want that for my community.

i do dream of a world where one day, we have quality accessibility everywhere, so websites that exist to bridge a gap and fill in where billion dollar corporations are inadequate do not need to exist.

Sincerely,

I have subscriptions to Netflix, hulu, Disney Plus, apple plus, Peacock, MAX, Paramount Plus, Prime, BET Plus, Starz, MGM Plus, Broadway HD, and AMC Plus, and all of these companies owe me five minutes of someone’s time, who actually matters and has the ability to enact change.