Deaf Girly and the (inaccessible) Christmas Movies

One of my favourite things about Christmas – aside from the lovely family gatherings, endless snacks and chocolate, the sparkly tree and presents – is the festive movies. I absolutely love a Christmas film. Even terrible ones... and believe me, there are some terrible ones out there.

There's just something about them – the warm and fuzzy feelings, the amazing scenery as they are usually set in the USA with an abundance of snow, and the cheesy soundtracks – I can't get enough of them.

As someone who doesn't have a TV, I rely mainly on watching movies on catch-up on our computer, and this year Channel 5 did not disappoint with its double bill, daily afternoon Christmas movie fest. There were all sorts of cheesy movies, including one that I particularly liked called A Cinderella Christmas.

It's up there with my other favourite cheesy Christmas movies: Holidaze – staring 90210's Jennie Garth, which is about a woman who hits her head and wakes up in a parallel universe, and A Christmas Snowglobe, which randomly stars Christina Milan and is about... well a Christmas snowglobe.

However, neither of these movies were on Channel 5 this year. They may have been on the Christmas 24 channel, which I only just today discovered existed, but being TV-less, I do not have this...

As I wanted to keep the Christmas cheer a bit longer, I set out trying to find all three of my favourite movies online to download, which turned out to be a bigger challenge than I anticipated.

Holidaze is available on Google Play and Amazon Video to download, but neither of these versions has subtitles or closed captions. Randomly, Holidaze is available to download on US iTunes with closed captions but only if you live in the US... which of course, I don't. It is NOT available on UK iTunes.

A Cinderella Christmas is available only on Amazon.com – the US site – as a digital download with closed captions, and is not available on the UK site, but more on that in a moment.

A Christmas Snowglobe is available on Google Play without closed captions. In fact, this was the only movie that I couldn't find anywhere with closed captions.

So in a nutshell, I cannot get any of these movies with closed captions, in this country.

*scowls

Obviously I decided to investigate this more and here's what I found out:

A Cinderella Christmas

You cannot buy anything digital on Amazon.com without having a US registered address and bank card. I thought that perhaps I could get around this by buying myself an Amazon.com gift card. I could not. So I contacted the lovely peeps on Amazon chat and to be fair they were amazing. I asked them why the content was not available to the UK Amazon users and they said it just wasn't. But they did – once I fessed up what I was trying to do – refund me on my gift card.

You can however, watch this movie on Demand 5 until 16 January – I am considering watching it every day just in case I never get to watch it again... yes, I am that sad!

Holidaze

I started by writing an email to iTunes, asking them why a movie was available on US iTunes but not UK iTunes and imploring them to consider making it available, especially when it is already available on Google Play and Amazon. I received a vanilla response thanking me for my feedback.

*scowls

I then contacted Amazon on their fantastic chat function and was told that the movie studio provides the film in that format and so it is not possible to change.

*scowls some more

And finally I contacted Google Play, who also told me that the movie studio was responsible so the error was theirs.

*scowls even more

So I contacted ABC Family/Freeform in America – the company that made the movie – and asked them why they had provided the movie without closed captions to the UK. Of course they didn't answer this exact question but instead told me that the movie had closed captions and they could see no reason why it wasn't captioned on Google Play and Amazon.

And then I got dizzy and sick and tired of going around in circles.

I contacted Google Play again today and was helped by a very nice man called Kevin who once again told me that there was nothing Google could do as this was the format of the movie they had been given by the distributor.

I am not sure that Kevin was allowed to leave the 'live chat' until I had confirmed that I was happy, so we had a 20 minute text conversation about how sad I was about my deafness and the lack of Christmas movies with closed captions while he typed platitudes and shared my frustrations. I think once I finally got off live chat, Kevin went and made himself a very strong coffee in the Google Play Kitchen.

A Christmas Snowglobe

By the time I got to trying to find out about this movie, I had basically lost the will to ask the same questions over and over again, so I guess we will never find out whether it's possible to get this movie with closed captions.

And after all this, I am once again at a brick wall and banging my head against it.

It amazes me that accessibility to digital content differs so greatly between the USA and the UK and while I know these big corporations have bigger things on their plate than worrying about whether some cheesy Christmas movie is available to a deaf girl in London, I am sad that accessible content continues to be something that is overlooked in favour of saving money, convenience or even perhaps licensing laws.

Do you know, I once emailed the company that released Dr Quinn Medicine Woman on DVD – OK, I know that's bad, but please try your hardest not to judge me on my cheesy taste in TV – to ask why none of the DVDs had closed captions and was told it was a money thing. The demand and the cost were incompatible.

Sucks to be deaf eh?

Being deaf is more expensive. While I get my hearing aids for free, my US friends must pay for theirs. But, even in the UK, so many other little things add cost to my everyday life. I understand the cost of deafness more than I'd care to. And just sometimes it would be nice to think that Amazon, Google and Apple did too and gave me and other deaf people, who'd like to watch cheesy Christmas movies with closed captions even in July, a break.

I am going to continue asking for those three Christmas movies to be made accessible to me and if that fails, I might do what the lovely guy on Amazon.com chat suggested and move to the USA...

But then what's a deaf girl like me going to do over there eh? Watch closed captioned Christmas movies I guess!

Happy New Year peeps!

Hope 2017 is a brilliant one.

DG
x

Deaf Girly's and the world of work

The fab peeps over on Twitter will know that since I quit my job to write a book and be an au pair, then got a permanent job for one year and then left it again, I've been going it alone in the world of employment. With varying degrees of success.

But this morning as I was walking to one of the offices I am working at, I suddenly realised I should in fact feel incredibly proud of myself.

When I first started out working in London many many moons ago, I used to look at the freelancers who came into our office on a regular basis and wonder how they did it. How they slotted into a different team, got to know different people and different ways of working and didn't panic about it.

I mean, me getting a job in the big bad world was the reason I started this blog. Learning how to be deaf in a professional environment sent my head into a spin, I cried every day - in a cupboard where I did much of my work. I loved that cupboard, it was my safe haven away from the people who could use the phone and be efficient in the world of new millennial media.

In my 20s, I clung to every job like my life depended on it. My food and rent certainly did depend on it. I was terrified of redundancy and so eager to climb the ladder that I think I lost perspective of what made me good at what I do in the first place.

And then in 2013, I had that brainwave to quit my job, rent out my flat, write a book and be an au pair. All of which were varying degrees of successful... But all of which taught me an awful lot about myself and my capabilities as a deaf person.

And then I finished the first of many drafts of the book, got a job while being an au pair (RESPECT TO WORKING MOTHERS HERE BECAUSE THIS WAS A MENTAL TIME IN MY LIFE), then stopped being an au pair, left my job, continued to rent my flat, and had to rent another one...

You still following?

So what does a thirty-something deaf girl with a patchwork CV and an unpublished book with bills to pay do?

I did something I'd never thought I could do... I went freelance.

To be fair, at the start I kept it local. I contacted former colleagues who gave me work and gradually built up my confidence again. But then - because I really did need a bit more money - I sent my CV out to random places to see what happened.

And that had varying degrees of success.

There was the company who contacted me and were really interested having seen my
CV but then on finding out I was deaf, told me I wouldn't be suitable for the job and they needed a hearing person who could communicate well... All without finding out whether I can communicate well and dismissing the fact I have a CV showing 13 years of communicating well. *scowls

Then there was the office who gave me chance but was so frantic I swear I only peed once the whole time I was there...

Shortly after the 'you're too deaf to do this job' rejection, I got an email from another company I'd sent my CV to. They offered me some work – a trial. I accepted. But as the dates drew nearer I found myself getting more and more anxious.

What if my deafness let me down? What if I was required to use the phone and there was no other alternative? Should I have told them in advance about my disability? What if they had a problem with me not telling them about my disability? The worry list went on... and on... and on... I almost talked myself out of doing the work.

On my first day, I went through all the possible disaster scenarios before shooing myself out of the door reminding myself that the need to earn money was greater than my anxieties about being deaf.

On arrival, I discovered my lovely manager had a Scottish accent, which meant revealing my deafness in the first second of our meeting. And he didn't bat an eyelid. Not even a tiny flinch. He just accepted the information. I passed my trial.

And since then, in the three months that I have worked at this office, my manager has continued to accept the information I give him about my deafness. He's made phone calls for me, repeated things without any issue, reminded me of people's names and he always, always comes over to speak to me rather than shouting.

It's amazing.

I am lucky. I know I am. Not all offices are like this. But I think quite a few are. And now, when I realise that freelancing is going OK, and I'm not falling apart in a deaf-related anxious heap, I can't help but beam to myself.

It's made me realise that some of the things I've avoided in the past because of my deafness are do-able... and it's made me wonder what else is...

I'm just off to make a list!

Happy Tuesday peeps

DG
xx

Deaf Girly's open letter to Odeon

Dear Odeon Cinemas,

Picture the scene:

I’m on my first date with FJM to the cinema – we’ve known each other almost two years, so it’s quite an amazing feat. It’s Jurassic World, something he’s really looking forward to seeing. As I haven’t been to the cinema for five years, I excitedly order popcorn and nachos and throw myself into eating the quite-frankly disgusting cold plastic cheese the latter are served with, with gusto.

You see yesterday was the first evening showing of Jurassic World that FJM and I could go to. I’d been stalking the Your Local Cinema website to find a captioned showing ever since I found out that FJM went to see the original Jurassic Park three times in one week when it came out in 1993.

Such was my excitement that we got there 40 minutes early. Such was my excitement that I checked with staff that this captioned movie was definitely happening several times. Such was my excitement that I ate most of that plastic cheese – DEAR GOD WHAT IS IN THAT STUFF? – while FJM did his best with his stale popcorn. 

So imagine my horror when the opening scene began to roll and not a single caption popped up. ‘Okay, okay,’ I reasoned, maybe they are just normal subtitles rather than ones of the hard of hearing. Maybe once people start talking some captions will pop up. People started talking.

Nothing.

I was not alone in my speedy sprint down the stairs from my £13-something Premier Seat where we found a guy with a walkie talkie looking a bit panic stricken. 

The film continued rolling. FJM ate his stale popcorn.

To be fair, I couldn’t fault the Odeon staff at this point. They were trying. I could see the exertion on their faces of running up the stairs to the projection room to see what was going on. And when I asked that they start the movie again once sorting the subtitles, they agreed.

And so they did. And we all returned to our seats. I put the plastic cheese to one side and sat nervously. Odeon wasn’t about to ruin my first ever cinema date with FJM was it?

The opening scene rolled again. The egg started to hatch, and the crow’s foot hitting the snow didn’t quite have the same impact second time around. Anne Heche said something unintelligible to me and… there were no captions.

At this point, and I really don’t blame them, most of the people who had come for the captions left.

The movie was paused. I remained hopeful. I held FJM’s hand and tried to forget the tub of plastic cheese I’d just eaten.

Third time around, I held my breath as the first little claw came out of the delicate egg shell. I held my breath as the crow landed on the snow. I held my breath as Anne Heche yelled something unintelligible and then I realised that I too would have to walk out of this cinema and take the non-subtitle-needing FJM with me.

And while your staff politely issued me my refund. For the tickets. For the plastic cheese. For the slightly stale popcorn, I found myself tearfully apologising to FJM that he had to miss a film he really wanted to watch because of me. 

I found myself asking staff why they couldn’t get the captions to work. Why when it was someone’s job, was it not being done? Why, when it was advertised and I double checked on arriving, did I not get what I had paid for? No one could give me any answers.

So then I asked staff if this happened often, they said no. Although they also looked like they were struggling to recall what a caption actually was. One of the guys who walked out at the beginning, said it happened quite a lot. His face had an expression of weary acceptance. 

But I refuse to accept your incompetence, Odeon.

You ruined our date. And worse still, I had cold plastic cheese for dinner, when had I known you were going to screw up so spectacularly I would have passed on that and marched straight over to the Byron Burger opposite instead.

Do you know, last year there were reports that the UK box office suffered its biggest fall for 20 years? The cinema we went to, Kensington Odeon – not because its local but because it was the only one showing the movie with captions – was facing redevelopment and attracted a wealth of high-profile protestors about it.

But Odeon, I don’t have high hopes for your future, because the thing is, I don’t truly believe that you value all your customers. If you did, then yesterday wouldn’t have happened. Yesterday, someone would have checked the captions on the movie were working before the excited people turned up, ate plastic cheese and left again feeling angry and humiliated and in my case downright pissed off.

I understand that there will probably never be more than one subtitled movie a week and that this will usually be an afternoon showing because evening captions are likely to put valued hearing customers off – as Sara Cox once spectacularly demonstrated on Twitter. I understand that it probably all boils down to the subject of money.

But yesterday I spent £45 that you had to refund. You also gave me two free tickets to try and tempt me back next week after staff promised there would be a subtitled showing of Jurassic World again.

I will not be going.

I’d start a campaign if I’d thought it’d make a difference. Found a charity to help fund the showing of captioned movies. Or support an existing one. So that companies like yours don’t have to take the hit for making lives like ours accessible.

But I can’t really make that difference Odeon. You can. By not mucking up the one captioned movie you’re showing that month. By not serving plastic cheese and stale popcorn. And by remembering that you ruined my first date to the cinema with FJM.

Happy Tuesday Odeon.

Happy sodding Tuesday.

DG

Deaf Girly and the Freedom Pass

Last night I stayed at Fab Friend's house after dinner and a catch up. She lives in Zone 3 and her local station is on a train line into London.

So this morning I joined the swathes of commuters coming into London at her station and tapped my Freedom Pass on the Oyster Reader.

'Seek assistance' it told me as 20,000 commuters slammed into the back of me as a result of the ticket gate not opening.

'Erm?' I thought, backed up and tried again.

The same thing happened.

I tried once more and then my Freedom Pass slipped out of my hand and fell down the tiny gap between the two barriers.

In order to get it I had to kneel down and contort my shoulder to reach through the narrow opening. Then I had to pat around in the general detritus (*beams at being able to use this word) until my fingers felt the smooth plastic of the card, and a lot of other things I don't want to think about, on the way.

Flustered, I got up and turned around to see a sea of faces all looking cross at being held up by a blonde girl grovelling around on her hands and knees, and walked off to speak to someone in the ticket office. Cheeks burning with embarrassment.

'Not valid at this time of the morning' the ticket man told me. Or at least that's what I think he said from behind the glass of the ticket booth.

'Erm?' I thought and stomped off to the ticket machine where I tried to purchase a ticket using my Disabled Rail Card. But it wouldn't let me do that either.

Neither were valid in the morning. Before 9.30am, which is one hour after I start work.

But what I want to know is WHY NOT?

Why can't I use my Freedom Pass to travel on any form of transport within Zones 1 and 6 in London at any time?

I'm not saying that I should necessarily have that right. But I just want to know why I can't.

A quick Google found this blog post here about it and these views were shared by many of the responses to my tweets this morning.

But I still want more answers. So I have emailed various train and transport people in the hope of finding out. And I will keep you posted on what I find out.

In the meantime, I would like to apologise to all the people who most probably missed their train this morning when I held them all up at the ticket barrier. Particularly the cross-looking man who looked like he wanted to manhandle me out of the station and make me stay there to think about the consequences of my actions. Actually not him. He was just mean and rude. But to the rest of them...

I am sorry. It will never happen again. From now on, I'm sticking to tubes (when I have to) and buses… and I'm driving to Zone 3.