Observing Those Observing

It is late as I pull into the Cineplex parking lot. I do a slow drive by passing the movie posters with the show times posted below them. I missed the seven-thirty show by almost two hours but I can still catch the late show at nine-twenty. I drive around back and park near the theater exit, like always. I look around quickly to memorize my spot and briskly walk to the ticket counter.
I’m not to late. I ask for my ticket and hand over my card. I look at the attractive young woman as she prints out my receipt and ticket. My mind wonders and I think about how nice it would be to be young again and then laugh at myself over the silly thought of a 29 year old wanting to be young again. She hands me the receipt to sign and then my ticket. Our fingers touch for a half second, hers are soft, mine are rough, I think again about being younger.
I enter the main lobby still thinking about my own youth when my eye catches the flickering light of the arcade. There a group of teenagers are playing a pistol game. It looks like one of them is telling the others that the movie is about to start, as he is shoving his watch in their faces. I turn to look at the concession lines and decide that they are short enough for that I may buy popcorn and something to drink and still enter the theater in time to see the previews of coming attractions. In front of me, a couple orders a large tub of popcorn, two sodas and then adds Red Vines and Junior Mints, their total nears thirty dollars. They don’t seem to mind; they flirt with each other as the progressive woman shells out the cash. I’m next. The same girl that sold me my tickets has swapped places with a co-worker and is now taking my order. I ask for a medium coke and small popcorn. The young woman goes through the regular suggestive selling routine and asks if I want to up size my snacks for a buck more. I look at my watch, the show has started by now and I kindly decline. I pay for my snacks with cash this time to speed things up.
I hand my ticket to the kid ripping tickets. The teenagers behind me, joking and play fighting, hand their tickets over to get the official rip as I walk down the maroon carpeted hall to the door of my theater. I glance at the screen before I look for a seat. I relax a bit when I see that commercials are still playing so I haven’t missed the trailers. I continue looking for a place to sit and find one in the middle that is still empty but then I remember the excuse I gave my wife for “wasting money” at the theater and choose a seat that allows me to see the audience as well as the movie.
I watch as other latecomers trickle in. Some stop in the walkway looking for that perfect seat. Some are like the teenagers that followed me in go straight for the front row, or like the young couple that was in front of me at the concessions, go straight for the privacy of the find in the back for. Then the guy who had his buddies save him a seat comes in and when his friends spot him one of them shout, “Over here!”
If you had been raised with theater etiquette you would not believe you were in a room of people about to see a show. There are people laughing and joking and having a good ole’ time. The previews come on and the audience’s whispers’ float all over the room as they discuss which movies they want to see. Then a sound arises from the speakers, it intensifies to a louder and louder hum. This movie is presented in THX Surround Sound. The audience is quiet and tensely waits for the movie to begin.
The initial credits are placed in front of a backdrop of a slow pan over skyscrapers of a modern city. Geeks like me comment on cast and crewmembers we have read about or seen the other works they’ve done as their names appear. An abrupt and commanding, “Shhh,” is heard, someone is annoyed. A laugh and chuckle follow but is quickly silenced when a gunshot is heard from the speakers. The action has finally started and the audience takes note, finally buttoning up. They begin to really watch. All that is heard of them now is the sucking on straws and the crunching and munching of candy and popcorn.
Of course not everyone is watching intently. The young couple, in the dark, corner shadows, are giving more attention to each other than the film and the teenagers are still at it in the front, presently, tossing popcorn at one another. This all brings to mind the question of why people come to the theater at all when they can spend a 10th of what they pay here on a rental. Why come to the theater to for faux privacy like the couple or to play like the teens?
Why do Americans pay so much money for this experience? I don’t think I can answer that question with out looking into myself. But of course my answer may only fit me. I have a love for the theater that comes from childhood experiences. It is the first place I saw a man fly, the first place I saw a galactic space opera, where my favorite television cartoons were blown up to larger than life size in action packed movies. It was the family time I experienced. The popcorn and candy and soda my parents would buy for me. When the lights would go down and our dreams became reality. You could laugh along with everyone else and cry with everyone else or scream as the whole audience screamed. To peak through your mothers fingers as she blocked your eyes from the parts that were too scary. I guess for me the dark theater is a place where one can forget the outside world and be surrounded by people who enjoy the same stories as you do.
Maybe it is as simple as that, to escape without having to leave our community, to be a part of a community and separate from it at the same time. What ever the reason I do know that I will always love the theater more than renting and watching at home and I am sure that America will go on doing the same for times to come.