The art of subtitles is dying

The popular Korean drama “Squid Game” has been criticized for its English subtitles. Captioners need to contend with unrealistic expectations, tight deadlines, and competition from machine translation. Often their work is underrated. Doga Uludag, who works for a subtitle translation company, sometimes sends documents at 11 p.m. asking for a translation—“they’ll say they need it by 8 a.m. tomorrow.” Without a skilled subtitle maker, the Oscar-winning film Parasitic Insects and other films will lose their luster in translation. Yet the art of subtitles is on the decline, almost doomed in an entertainment industry lured by cheaper emerging AI technologies. Subtitlers are a dying group. That’s exactly the predicament before the world started watching The Squid Game. In 28 days, “The Squid Game” surpassed “Bridgeton” as Netflix’s most popular series of all time. It also unwittingly sparked a global outcry about poor subtitles. While critics praised the South Korean battle royale-themed drama for its well-made, gripping story and memorable characters, many complained that Netflix was too perfunctory about the quality of the English subtitles for “Game of Squid.” Netflix used to have in-house subtitle translations. It launched its in-house subtitle program Hermes in 2017 but dropped it a year later, and the company has an interest in another area of ​​translation: dubbing. The reason is not difficult to understand. For example, 72% of Netflix U.S. viewers say they prefer dubbing when watching Netflix’s third-most popular Spanish hit of all time, Money Heist. Unfair criticism, underfunding, and a lack of support from the entertainment industry have put subtitlers on the brink of extinction. At least the “Squid Game” controversy sheds light on an untold fact: Good subtitles are a very difficult art .

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