Rep. Robert Garcia is doubling down on his disappointment with CBS for its handling of captioning Bad Bunny’s Grammys performance.
On Wednesday, the California Democrat called out CBS for not offering Spanish-language closed captions during Bad Bunny’s performances and speech during the broadcast.
Bad Bunny kicked off the Grammys with a mashup of “El Apagón” and “Después de la Playa” from his record-breaking album Un Verano Sin Ti, which later won the award for Best Música Urbana Album. When he performed his Spanish-language tracks, the caption “[SINGING NON-ENGLISH]” appeared; during his acceptance speech, the caption “[SPEAKING NON-ENGLISH]” was displayed.
In an open letter to CBS Entertainment President and CEO George Cheeks, Garcia wrote that the company needs to “take serious measures to address the failures which made this mistake possible.” The letter was first reported by Variety.
Garcia elaborated on his dismay with CBS in a statement to BuzzFeed News on Thursday. “This issue is about respect. The millions of Spanish speakers living in the U.S. deserve equal treatment and consideration as CBS’s English-speaking viewers,” he said. “When millions of Americans tuned in to watch record-breaking Latino artist Bad Bunny perform on one of Hollywood’s biggest stages, they were met with a reminder that for CBS Spanish is simply [NON-ENGLISH].”
CBS captioned the performance in English, which is the industry standard in the US, where using the term “speaking non-English” in captions is also what’s normally used.