To help fill up this rather cold long weekend we made some time to take my daughter to her second (and first in 3D) film. Disney just re-released their classic Beauty and the Beast to 3D theaters and it was a worthwhile cinematic experience. We agreed that while there was little to be added to the Beauty and the Beast story by presenting it in eye fatiguing 3D, seeing it on the large screen was still pretty cool for a 5 year old. My only complaints, instead, center around the folks who go out and behave like animals.
Our 11 AM showing was mercifully uncrowded, but still provided a perfect microcosm to study what is wrong with society today.
We’ve got the rude talkers:
For some reason every single time I go to a theater the “talkers” end up sitting directly behind me*. They yap all through the movie about things like (I swear I am not making this up) braising short ribs. Seriously. You’re at the 11 AM showing of Beauty and the Beast talking about braising short ribs while the film is running. Shut up.
We’ve got the technology crippled:
Within seconds of the lights going down it’s like the place has been invaded by glowing blue fireflies. And they don’t stop. It’s not like people just saw the three PSAs asking everyone to turn their freaking phones off and thought, “now’s the time”. They genuinely don’t give a damn that their blue glow distracts you throughout the entire show.
We’ve got the “my precious does no wrong” parents:
Beauty and the Beast can be kind of intense for some kids, and totally over the heads of ones much younger than 5. A great idea is NOT to round up a group of three year olds, have them sit together on a row, load them up with candy, and then let them run hog wild.
We’ve got the “someone else will take care of this” people:
I have never, ever, in my entire life seen a transformation like this theater went through. It being an 11:00 showing we were the first to visit the newly cleaned room. When we walked in the place was spotless. When we walked out there were cups, trash, popcorn, and general crap EVERYWHERE. I was actually embarrassed walking out past the poor employee who has to clean up everyone’s trash. Somehow we can figure out how to bring a ton of junk food into a darkened theater without spilling a greasy drop on our sweatpants, but God forbid we cart all that junk and our slop out with us.
I have been accused of being snooty here before (touche, anonymous keyboard warriors). But if it makes me snooty to say that civilized people shut up in theaters, turn their digital devices off when it would be distracting to others, don’t let their kids run wild and disruptive in public, and clean up their own trash, then I am guilty as charged. I am King Snoot.
Now, I recognize that the 11AM showing of Beauty and the Beast is a rather mundane public affair. Of course we’re not exactly talking about a high class occasion.
But we are talking about an experience where children are learning something. At an early age we learn how to behave and how to respect others- and we learn it by watching those around us. What the kids in that theater learned today- aside from the message that true love can convert a beast into a kind of weird looking man (and that applies only to the few kids old enough to know what was going on)- was that it’s okay to do whatever you want regardless of how it impacts others.
*unless I’m in the back row, in which case they sit directly in front of me and wear large fashion hats
