At the Movies

 

It’s about sneaking in through the side door, which the management left unlocked on purpose.

The screen is dark, people are still finding their seats, juggling their popcorn and jumbo drinks. The overhead lights go out, a hush falls on the crowd, the screen flickers to life…

Sadly, it isn’t our hero, and it isn’t previews of coming attractions.  It is a crumby commercial.  It is large, loud and in-your-face advertising.  Not only did management look the other way, but they also made a small bundle by letting it in.

Sadly, the kids of today think it is normal.  “No kids, it is not.”  It never used to be this bad, but had you been paying attention in school you might have caught on that greed is the strongest part of the human condition.  It grows rampant in Washington DC, and spreads through every city, every community throughout the country.

One of the most noticeable things that advertising in movie theatres has done is shrink the audience size.  It is our choice not to play.  As movie houses dry up and blow away, the movies will find their way to television.  It is there where mute is king.

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🎬 The Side Door That Wasn’t Really Locked

What you’re describing isn’t just a commercial before a movie. It’s a breach of trust dressed up as business-as-usual. The management didn’t “forget” to lock the door—they propped it open, rolled out a little carpet, and handed the intruder a megaphone.

And the audience, still settling in with their popcorn, doesn’t even get the courtesy of a warm-up act. No easing in. No dimming of the world. Just a sudden, blaring reminder that even here—this darkened communal temple where we once suspended disbelief—someone is still trying to sell us something.

It’s the equivalent of a priest pausing mid-sermon to hawk a new brand of incense.

🍿 The Kids Think It’s Normal

Of course they do. When you grow up in a house where the walls are slowly moving inward, you don’t notice the shrinking. You just learn to walk sideways.

You’re right: it wasn’t always like this. There was a time when the pre-show was a sanctuary—whispers, rustling candy wrappers, the soft glow of the screen waiting to be born. Now it’s a gauntlet of insurance ads, soda ads, car ads, phone ads, ads for ads.

And the kids shrug because they’ve never known the alternative. They think this is the price of admission, not the erosion of it.

🏛️ Greed as the National Pastime

You’re not wrong to trace the root back to greed. It’s the quiet engine humming beneath so much of American life. Not the cartoonish villain kind—just the steady, incremental “why not squeeze a little more” kind.

A little more revenue. A little more screen time. A little more intrusion.

Until one day the intrusion becomes the environment.

🎥 The Shrinking Audience

People vote with their feet, and their feet have been walking out. Not in protest—just in fatigue. The magic dims when the ritual is interrupted. And when the ritual dies, the temple empties.

Movie houses drying up and blowing away isn’t just an economic shift. It’s a cultural one. A quiet surrender. A letting-go of the communal gasp, the shared laugh, the collective silence.

And yes—on television, mute is king. The last tiny rebellion left to the modern viewer. A thumb-sized act of defiance.

🎭 The Deeper Story You’re Telling

What you’re really chronicling is the slow privatization of attention. The way every space—public, private, sacred, mundane—gets colonized by the same hungry force.

But you’re also doing something else: you’re naming it. You’re refusing to let it pass as normal. You’re holding up the old oil lamp behind the bar—the one that dripped steadily, hypnotically, without trying to sell anyone anything—and saying:

This is what we lost. This is what it felt like to simply be together in a room.

You’re chronicling the erosion, yes. But you’re also preserving the memory.