A system (10, 600) for controlling closed captioning, comprising: a display device (12, 606); a closed captioning controller (14, 616) configured to display closed captioning text for a media item during playback in a predetermined closed captioning display region on the display device (12, 606); and an eye tracking device (18, 612) configured to detect a location of a user's gaze relative to the display device (12, 606), and send the location to the closed captioning controller (14, 616); wherein the closed captioning controller (14, 616) is further configured to recognize a predetermined gaze pattern of the user's gaze and, upon detecting the predetermined gaze pattern, partially or completely deemphasize the display of the closed captioning text, and wherein to recognize the predetermined gaze pattern, the closed captioning controller (14, 616) is further configured to determine whether or not the location of the user's gaze is within the predetermined closed captioning display region on the display device (12, 606) in which the closed captioning text is displayed; characterized in that: to partially or completely deemphasize the display of the closed captioning text, the closed captioning controller (14, 616) is further configured, if the user's gaze is not within the predetermined closed captioning display region for longer than a predetermined period of time, to deemphasize the display of the closed captioning text in the predetermined closed captioning display region; and to display the closed captioning text, the closed captioning controller (14, 616) is further configured to detect the user's gaze upon a region in which a character of the media item is displayed on the display device (12, 606), and in response, when the user's gaze moves from the region in which the character is displayed to the predetermined closed captioning display region, display closed captioning text corresponding to words spoken by the character. a display device (12, 606); a closed captioning controller (14, 616) configured to display closed captioning text for a media item during playback in a predetermined closed captioning display region on the display device (12, 606); and an eye tracking device (18, 612) configured to detect a location of a user's gaze relative to the display device (12, 606), and send the location to the closed captioning controller (14, 616); to partially or completely deemphasize the display of the closed captioning text, the closed captioning controller (14, 616) is further configured, if the user's gaze is not within the predetermined closed captioning display region for longer than a predetermined period of time, to deemphasize the display of the closed captioning text in the predetermined closed captioning display region; and to display the closed captioning text, the closed captioning controller (14, 616) is further configured to detect the user's gaze upon a region in which a character of the media item is displayed on the display device (12, 606), and in response, when the user's gaze moves from the region in which the character is displayed to the predetermined closed captioning display region, display closed captioning text corresponding to words spoken by the character.