Working at the local movie theater this summer taught me a few very important things about myself. The first and most important is that I love the cinema, and there’s nothing that can ever dissuade me from that. The second and admittedly less relevant is that I despise the average movie goer. Cleaning up their messes over the past three months has led me to the ultimately jaded conclusion that theater etiquette as we know it is dead.  

Film student bias aside, the experience of the cinema, the grandeur of it all, the history of it, is clearly a venture still worth undertaking, even in this age of digitization and streaming accessibility. Despite my overarching optimism, general audiences don’t quite seem to align with this thought. Why should anybody go out and see a movie, not to mention the arm and leg charged for concessions, when the very same medium is readily available (for free!) at the convenience of our fingertips, in the luxury of our very homes, without having to move so much as a muscle. 

Unfortunately, this leisurely method of consumption has begun to bleed over into the physical realm of things, to the point where the average moviegoer sees little to no distinction between their home and the theater. Hyperbolic? Maybe, but the little things matter: think the incessant conversations (OUT LOUD!, if you can believe it), the constant need to check a phone, even going as far as to answer a phone call. These minor annoyances are not only non-conducive to a holistic theater experience that you paid upwards of $30 of your hard-earned money for, but worse, harmful to the medium and the societal perception of art in general. I’m not even going to attempt to cover the boorish practices that seemed to come packaged with a ticket to “The Minecraft Movie”; that’s a whole other article altogether.  

Now, granted, in the isolation of the pandemic, the absence of a physical media experience, the communal aspect of seeing a stupid cape flick on a Friday night with some friends, was very clearly missed. What I and so many others would have given in the midst of suffocating isolation to walk down the beaten and bruised, kaleidoscopic chic tapestry carpets, popcorn and soda in hand, the smell of a fresh batch decorating the air in an ozone layer of butter. Don’t let the overwhelmingly cynical nature of this title deceive you – the magic of the movies is a very real and palpable concept. 

However, this aforementioned magic has become exceedingly diluted, or perhaps inaccessible, considering both (a) the excursional cost of transport (why go anywhere when you can just stay home?) and (b) the transactional cost. Not a meek one, either. Inflation on both tickets and concessions have skyrocketed drastically since COVID. Again, why go anywhere at all when you can just stay home?

I fear there is not a plausible or even optimistic solution to this already niche and pretentious predicament. Long gone are the days of the implicit, collective agreement amongst movie goers to actually watch the movie. Instead, in an era of increasingly waning attention spans, abundant accessibility and complacent lethargy, we must (I don’t mean this sardonically) challenge ourselves to go see a film. 

We should leave our ceaseless need for fleeting stimulation at the door and simply experience a longstanding pillar of cultural significance. Even if it’s garbage, even if it’s the worst movie you’ve ever seen in your entire life (believe me, there’s a lot of them nowadays), we need to devote some of our precious time and energy to the medium. 

The convenience of the digital age, particularly in visual media, has made us collectively forget that the arts are a privilege and should be treated as such, lest we risk losing one of our prevailing forces of expression to the lifeless husk of hollow, generative creativity (if you can even dignify it as such) that fuels the farce of the artificial artistry we seem to be spiraling towards.  

I understand if this at all appears meandering or condescending in a very particular, snobbish sort of way. But the truth is, the stakes have never been higher. So go see a movie, it’s still a fun thing to do. There are some great ones out right now, and “One Battle After Another” comes out in less than two weeks. Bring your friends, buy some overpriced popcorn, complain about it for a second and subject yourself to the sublime power of the silver screen while you still can. Who knows, you might even enjoy it.