Where I Watched It: Hulu

English Audio Description?: No

Earlier today I watched the 7th episode of the final season of sex Education, and it featured the wheelchair bound Issac not being able to use the “lift” because it was broken again. They’ve tackled this before, and this time, he just got tired of it, and called out his school for lack of accessibility. He was joined by two other disabled students voicing their solidarity, with the hearing impaired girl giving a testimony of what it’s like for people to expect her to read lips all the time and how her accessibility needs frequently aren’t met. It was an inspiring moment, which was scripted, because suddenly everyone cared, and the elevator got fixed.

of course this Gerard butler film premiered on Hulu without audio description. Never mind that large chunks of it aren’t in English, or that the other chunks are action sequences. I feel a little like Issac in that I’ve been trying to communicate my accessibility needs to these streaming services, and yet they really just do not care. Complaining to Hollywood doesn’t get you a well-scripted Hollywood ending. it gets you a corporate bottom line reaction that one voice is just one voice, so who really cares?

I literally cannot review Kandahar. Aside from a phone call Butler makes early in the movie home, this was very impossible to follow. As fun as it is to listen to gunfire for two hours, I could also just hop on Twitch and listen to someone play Call of Duty for that. If you have the money to pay Gerard butler, you have the money to pay for accessibility to make sure everyone who buys a ticket, rents the film, or streams it, has the ability to watch it. And Hulu, which is Disney, has enough money to pay someone to make sure they are acquiring all that audio description. If they made a real effort, and I wasn’t consistently seeing them hosting titles with known audio description that they somehow just choose not to upload, I might then be able to complain to the studios. But, when it comes to Hulu, it is more likely apathy that caused the lack of accessibility.

Second butler film I watched this year without accessibility. Maybe Gerard Butler has a problem with blind people. Or, perhaps he could pay a bit more attention to how his projects reach his audiences. Just a thought.

Final Grade: unwatchable