If you’re needing a good laugh right about now it might pay to go on Twitter and see what a lot of people are whining about when it comes to the subtitles that are featured with the Korean movie Parasite. Some people, as Kevin Burwick of MovieWeb have pointed out, even took to calling out the movie for being horrible and pathetic. Hulu, which is featuring the movie right now, with subtitles, had the perfect answer: it won four Oscars. However a person feels about the movie and no matter that some of us do feel that the Academy Awards are kind of a joke, four Oscars is more than a fluke or a running gag since it means that the movie and those that made it impressed the right people at the right time. Those four Oscars are also more than enough solace for Hulu since it means that they don’t really need to listen to the hate and the trolls that continue to whine and cry about the subtitles. It really makes one think that those doing the whining either weren’t around when we had old school movies from other countries that absolutely NEEDED subtitles because a lot of people weren’t willing to learn a new language just to watch a movie. Anyone remember that? It’s been that way for a long time now to be fair, since we can either deal with subtitles or horrible voice-overs that are thankfully a thing of the past, mostly. Parasite is a Korean movie, it was made in the native language, it’s time for people to get over themselves and remember that they read subtitles for quite a few movies anyway. In the words of Jay-Z, if you’re havin’ movie problems I feel bad for you son, I got 99 problems but subtitles ain’t one. Okay it was cheesy but it just struck me as funny at the moment.
Seriously, one suggestion made in Kevin Burwick’s article is to learn Korean, and with the number of different methods to learn a language, and the excessive free time that a lot of people have, this is kind of the perfect time for it. But of course people don’t want to hear that because life is hard enough already, right? Cue the violins for those that believe reading subtitles during a movie is too difficult and takes their attention away from the action too often, and let’s cry a single tear for them while we’re at it. Being real though, subtitles are basically the explanation of what’s going on, the dialogue between people. If you absolutely need dialogue to figure out what’s happening in a movie then no offense, but you absolutely suck at reading body language or a situation. There are so many other cues in movies that don’t rely on dialogue that it’s hard to imagine why anyone would even bother opening their mouth to say that sound, meaning dialogue, is one hundred percent important. Sound overall in a movie is definitely important since it can paint a wider picture than might be possible without it, but again, there are ways around anything if there’s something lacking in a movie. Likely not very many people are still around that remember the era of silent movies, but there was a time when sound just wasn’t a factor in the cinematic experience, and yet people still picked up various things from movies that some folks these days would likely miss because they’re too worried about something else that’s not there.
Subtitles are a great way to let people know what’s going on between individuals in the movie when it comes to dialogue, this much is true. But if you can’t pick up on body language, tone of voice, or any other non-verbal clue in a movie then there’s nothing for it really. There are so many more elements to a movie than sound, or dialogue, even though people talking to each other and what they’re saying can make a difference in the plot. But people whining about subtitles has to be right up there with folks thinking that calling the coronavirus the ‘Chinese Virus’ is racist when it comes to moments of jaw-dropping idiocy. Before the coronavirus hit people were going around complaining about anything and everything they possibly could, but now that we’re stuck in our homes one might think that the complains about stupid things would stop. Huh boy was that a naive assumption. Now folks are complaining about subtitles as though they’re the worst idea to ever come out of the cinema, when in truth they’re used in an uncounted number of movies and people have rarely, if ever, really bothered to complain about them. Thankfully Hulu has found many people that happen to like the movie and don’t mind the subtitles, which means the trolls can go find another bridge to park it under.
