Anyone who consistently speaks incomprehensibly and doesn't correct is soon cut off.
Mishearing does happen, but is the exception, and having repeats will take away from the presentation for little narrative benefit. Therefore, when putting it on the big screen, they present the interaction in a way that avoids blowing time to have characters repeat themselves.
So yes, in a sense (that you weren't arguing), you are correct: in real life, there will be more mishearings (and repeats). But IRL, you also don't normally have to carry on after not hearing correctly. To the extent that movies are accomplishing that, it is a departure from realism.
>Listening to dialog in a movie theater is generally crystal clear in terms of audio engineering,
As judged by the repeated complaints of numerous people, to the point that periodicals are covering it, no, it's not, it's really really not. Perhaps you hear things okay but most people don't.
>My point is that subtitles help people who have trouble understanding similar dialog in real life, or in bad acoustics.
But these are people that have no trouble in similar dialog in real life! Hence why this is being covered, and why people are upset. Did you notice the title? "Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions..." You must have missed the subtext that, "20-somethings are not a special class with hearing disabilities". If they can't hear it, you can dismiss it was "lol hard of hearing" or some exceptional case.
>When I watch a movie in a friend's living room with kids running around, we absolutely put on subtitles. Because it's a terrible audio environment.
But people are using subtitles when there aren't distractions, and they didn't need to do this 20 years ago. I just watched Seinfeld on Netflix, and the dialog clarity was thousands of times better than any more recent production. I turned off subtitles, which was unusual for me. How come it wasn't such a "terrible audio environment" back then?
Because sound engineering practices have regressed, and you shouldn't be rationalizing them.
Listening to dialog in a movie theater is generally crystal clear in terms of audio engineering, coming from dedicated center speakers with very little audio artifacts due to the space. Directional sound waves are directional sound waves, and no there's nothing our ears are optimized for that isn't reproduced by speakers, for dialog coming from a few feet or more away. Muddiness is introduced when downmixed into stereo on crappy TV speakers in living rooms with a lot of sonic reflection from hard surfaces. If you listen with spatial audio AirPods with noise cancellation, for example, you'll get something much clearer akin to a theater experience.
My point is that subtitles help people who have trouble understanding similar dialog in real life, or in bad acoustics. It's an accessibility option.
When I listen to content with my AirPods, I never need subtitles at all. The audio is perfect. When I watch a movie in a friend's living room with kids running around, we absolutely put on subtitles. Because it's a terrible audio environment. So it all works out.