'Guardians of the Galaxy' Trailer Criticized for Excluding Captions

Update: On Thursday, Marvel Studios removed the trailer from its Facebook page and Chris Pratt posted an apology in sign language on his Instagram page. “More than 38 million Americans live with some sort of hearing disability. So I want to apologize,” Pratt wrote. “I have people in my life who are hearing-impaired, and the last thing in the world I would want to do is offend them or anybody who suffers from hearing loss or any other disability. So truly from the bottom of my heart I apologize. Thanks for pointing this out to me. In the future I’ll try to be a little less ignorant about it.” 

Instagram does this thing where it mutes all the videos it shows and forces you to turn on the volume in order to hear them. (maybe because most people are watching those videos at work when they should be working and don’t want to get caught. I know that’s when I do it. ????) So when I made a video recently with subtitles, and requested that people turn up the volume and not just “read the subtitles” it was so people wouldn’t scroll past the video on mute, thus watching and digesting the information in the video. HOWEVER, I realize now doing so was incredibly insensitive to the many folks out there who depend on subtitles. More than 38 million Americans live with some sort of hearing disability. So I want to apologize. I have people in my life who are hearing-impaired, and the last thing in the world I would want to do is offend them or anybody who suffers from hearing loss or any other disability. So truly from the bottom of my heart I apologize. Thanks for pointing this out to me. In the future I’ll try to be a little less ignorant about it. Now… I know some of you are going to say, “Hey! Chris only apologized because his publicist made him!” Well. That is not the case. As always I control my social media. Nobody else. And I am doing this because I’m actually really sorry. Apologies are powerful. I don’t dole them out Willy-Nilly. This is one of those moments where I screwed up and here’s me begging your pardon. I hope you accept my apology. And on that note. Why doesn’t Instagram have some kind of technology to automatically add subtitles to its videos? Or at least the option. I did a little exploring and it seems lacking in that area. Shouldn’t there be an option for closed captioning or something? I’ve made them lord knows how much money with my videos and pictures. Essentially sharing myself for free. I know they profit. So… GET ON IT INSTAGRAM!!! Put closed captioning on your app. #CCinstaNow

A post shared by chris pratt (@prattprattpratt) on May 4, 2017 at 5:59am PDT

“Guardians of the Galaxy” fans are upset with Marvel Studio’s film franchise after it posted a trailer on Facebook removing video captions and telling fans to “turn up the volume” to watch the clip.

“C’mon seriously dude,” Chris Pratt says in the trailer. “You’d rather read those than hear me?”

“Nah. No reading those,” he adds as the captions disappear from the video. The video then continues for the remaining 37 seconds without any captions.

Dozens of deaf people and parents of hard-of-hearing children have taken to the comments section of the video to share their disappointment with the film company.

“As I am a proud Deaf individual, that was hurtful. I wouldn’t have expected this out of Marvel,” a deaf fan wrote. “I was so excited when I saw this video had captions because movie trailers never, never, NEVER have captions! Then you had to go and do that. Wow. There’s just-haha- I have nothing to say but wow. Marvel you better watch yourself.”

“I love Chris Pratt but this is absolutely the most insensitive stunt I’ve seen in a long time,” a mother of a deaf 2-year-old shared on Facebook. “Captions are not for lazy people who forget to turn on the volume. It’s for people with hearing loss.”

“We had plans to see this movie opening day, however now we will make other plans. My [hard of hearing] teenage daughter watched this with tears,” another wrote. “You see those words at the bottom… she reads because her hearing aides don’t pick up the ranges in voices. The statement may not have been made to offend the people that NEED the words but this mom is very offended.”

“I am part deaf and have auditory processing disorder, which is like dyslexia, except with sound. I need captions. This is a disgusting video and you should be ashamed,” another added.

The Mighty reached out to Disney, the parent company of Marvel Studios, and has yet to hear back.