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When making films or TV shows for global audiences, there are several ways for producers to circumvent the language barrier and ensure that their content is consumed by larger, more varied audiences. One is dubbing, wherein voice actors speak in another language in place of the voice of the original actors. This method can lead to all sorts of technical problems, especially when it comes to effective vocal delivery of the performance and syncing up audio and video. While dubbing is popular in certain countries, many view it as an artistically inferior way of viewing foreign-language films or television. At least in North America, the generally preferred method is subtitling, which leaves the audio of foreign speech intact and places text translations at the bottom of the screen to be read in conjunction with the viewing.

But American audiences are notoriously wary of subtitled content, perhaps because the US has traditionally been the biggest exporter of films and did not historically watch large volumes of films from other countries. Producers are therefore fearful of marketing subtitled foreign-language films or television toward American viewers. Until recently, the convention for American films set in foreign-language-speaking countries was to ignore realism and give us characters speaking English with no explanation for the lapse. This convention is changing, though, and audiences increasingly want realism and authenticity in the shows they watch, even if it means more reading. (Interestingly, Game of Thrones (2013) is one of television’s most popular shows despite having large numbers of scenes subtitled in a fictional language.)

Narcos (2015) chooses to go down the subtitles route, and in many ways it shapes the experience that viewers have with the series. For one thing, the show is more accessible to Spanish speakers, who are part of Netflix’s growing audience outside the English-speaking world. As Jeremy Egner says in the NYTimes, “For Netflix, Narcos, large parts of which are subtitled, represents yet another ambitious, international undertaking as the streaming service seeks new subscribers outside of the United States.” Narcos, along with Marco Polo (2014), Sense8 (2015), Club de Cuervo (2015), and the planned Marseille are all examples of Netflix’s desire to expand its viewing base and appeal to a wider array of cultures and different language speakers. To varying degrees all of these programs require the viewer to utilize subtitles, unless they are multilingual, which changes the viewing experience in more ways than one.

For starters, in the case of Narcos the use of subtitles certainly makes the series feel more authentic. Suspension of disbelief would be difficult to achieve if pivotal scenes that involve supposedly real life characters were spoken in English to appease certain viewers. Imagine if the high intensity meetings between Medellín Cartel members were spoken in English. It would be more jarring to listen to people from Colombia’s violent drug history conversing in English than it is to read the subtitles. This, as well as the fact that the series was shot on location in Colombia, adds massively to the notion that this series has as much historical value as it does entertainment value, a notion which is central to Narcos’ identity as a TV series.

On a more substantial level, the fact that Narcos is a reading experience for certain viewers ensures a more complete understanding of the story. The only way for English-only speakers to experience Narcos is by fully investing in the dialogue on screen. Narcos is not something you can have playing in the background while doing chores or multitasking. To engage with it in any meaningful way, viewers have to invest fully; otherwise within minutes or even seconds the significance of any scene could go straight over the viewer’s head.

Of course, there are downsides to the use of subtitles. As with any translation, much of the delicacy in the writing is lost when switching from language to language, as things like alliteration, rhyming, and countless other elements of good writing are casualties of translation. For example, Escobar’s catchphrase “Plata o plomo” translates to “Silver or lead,” which effectively communicates the meaning of the phrase but doesn’t roll off the tongue with the same poetry. Another issue with the subtitles is that they often distract from the often stunning visuals onscreen. Narcos is very fast-paced, which makes trying to focus both on reading dialogue and watching actions in each scene a sometimes herculean task.

Despite the drawbacks of using subtitles in Narcos, the sense of authenticity and the enhanced literary experience they offer are well worth the trade off.