CinemaCon: Why We Can’t Allow Texting At The Movies
Deadline has some excellent coverage of CinemaCon, which is currently taking place in Las Vegas (April 23-26). One of today’s panels titled “An Industry Think Tank: Meeting the Expectations of Today’s Savvy Moviegoer” had a subject that particularly struck a chord in me. That subject being texting and cellphone use in a movie theater, it would appear that some theater chains have actually begun discussing and might even begin to be more lenient on people who use cellphones during a movie.
Regal Entertainment CEO Amy Miles says that her chain currently discourages cell phone use “but if we had a movie that appealed to a younger demographic, we could test some of these concepts.” For example, she says that the chain talked about being more flexible about cell phone use at some screens that showed 21 Jump Street. “You’re trying to figure out if there’s something you can offer in the theater that I would not find appealing but my 18 year old son” might.
Someone needs to slap Amy Miles upside her head for making such a dumb-ass statement. I don’t give a shit what demographic a movie has, allowing texting in a movie is just a stupid idea. Too many people today, kids/teens in particular, feel a sense of entitlement towards life and I think that letting some stupid tween text in a movie theater will only add to that sense of entitlement. Listen, junior, just because you entered the science project with your solar system diorama (which still has Pluto listed as a planet) doesn’t mean you should get a ribbon for it. If you’re on a baseball team and finish in last should you really get a damn trophy?! Oh hells no! Alas, I digress…
Tim League, CEO of Alamo Drafthouse knows what I’m talking about though (sorta). He had this to say regarding the subject:
“Over my dead body will I introduce texting into the movie theater,” he says. “I love the idea of playing around with a new concept. But that is the scourge of our industry….It’s our job to understand that this is a sacred space and we have to teach manners.” He says it should be “magical” to come to the cinema. But Miles shot back that “one person’s opinion of magical isn’t the other’s.”
He’s totally right, seeing a movie in a theater is a magical thing. When I see a movie in theaters I become immersed in that movie, regardless of what the movie is, and nothing breaks that moment like some douche bag in the next row texting on his brightly lit smartphone texting away. It’s bad enough paying $11-16 and hearing people feel the need to talk during a movie but then you add texting into the mix and I “hulk out” and want to smash. For myself and throngs of others the movie-going experience is like going to a place of worship. The movie theater is my temple, the Cinerama Dome is my Sistine Chapel. Would you text in your god’s house, no, I didn’t think so. So please…please…please don’t text in my god’s house, okay?
The movies are the last place that contain that sense of wonder and magic that make many of us feel like kids again, well in my case I will forever be one of Peter Pan’s lost boys, but with the advent of new technology that magic is in danger of fading away fast. I go to the movies to escape reality and be taken to another world, one where super-heroes exist, wars are wagged in a galaxy far far away, and hope forever springs eternal. Let’s leave our phones on silent and put them away for a few hours and get lost in the wonder of the cinema together. Our tweets and Facebook posts can wait until we get out….unless of course the Apocalypse happens during the movie, in which case I’d like a refund.
