When it comes to bad closed captioning, Marlee Matlin has a lot to say.
A tipping point came five years ago when Matlin, who’s been deaf since the age of 18 months, sat down with her daughter to watch the “Wizard of Oz” on Netflix. There were no subtitles. Her Tweet started a caption revolution. “Noise is good, because the purpose was good,” Matlin says.
The Academy Award-winning actress is now working with VIKI, which crowd sources program translations in more than 200 languages, for the Billion Words March. The FCC is behind the initiative, and in February outlined new rules aimed at stopping inaccurate closed captioning.
Along with her interpreter of 29 years, Jack Jason, we sat down with Matlin to talk about life off screen, and on. The Celebrity Apprentice and Dancing with the Stars contestant tells us which competition show she’d like to appear on next.