‘Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2’ Star Chris Pratt Apologizes To Hearing Impaired Fans For An ‘Insensitive’ Video

Chris Pratt has shown that he’s capable of recognizing when he’s wrong. The Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 star has placed his foot in his mouth once again and now he’s not only apologizing for “insensitive” remarks, but using the experience to push for enhanced accessibility.

The apology is the result of an Instagram video where Pratt encouraged fans to listen to the content rather than read the subtitles. Seeing as the hearing impaired rely on subtitles, Pratt was unintentional giving the middle finger to people that need a captioned video. Swiftly, Pratt released a rather heartfelt apology video saying sorry for his insensitive remarks. An apology was also provided in American Sign Language.

“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. 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.”

Pratt makes a point to stress that saying sorry isn’t a publicist pushed agenda. He wants you to know that his apology is sincere.

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.

Pratt would like Instagram to learn from his mistake and explore adding an automatic subtitle option to their videos. I believe this is what is known as a “teachable moment.”

(Via Variety)

×