Last night my lovely brother took me to see Valentine's Day for my birthday. It's not that this even looked like it would be a good film. In fact, it was critically panned. And you may be familiar with my general dislike of the holiday. But. The preview won me over in making me think it would be an uplifting film, at least, and after seeing The Lovely Bones and Precious the last couple of weeks, I wanted a giggle and a heart tingle, gosh darnit.
So disappointing. And I'm not even referring to the movie. Unfortunately, we were seated in front of the most immature twentysomethings on the planet. How did I know they were twentysomethings? When I, ten minutes into the movie, turned around and in my best teacher voice asked if they could please keep it down. I wasn't even getting the worst of it, as they were closer to D. Anyway I got a good look at them, though they didn't dare look at me, or apologize in the slightest. Definitely mid to late twenties, and though they stopped talking for about five minutes, they kept going throughout the movie whenever the mood struck. Volume control, people. It's something we learn at about 6, maybe 7 years of age.
But that's not even the worst of it. Movie talkers, blah blah blah, everyone's dealt with that particular brand of idiocy. Spoiler alert (but only if you're slow because holy jumping Jehosephat it's the most obvious "reveal" ever): Bradley Cooper's character is gay, and in a relationship with that guy from Grey's Anatomy, I can't think of his name right now. At the end of the film Cooper's character goes up to McSteamy and lightly touches his face, the freakin' least amount of contact between any romantic couple in the film, and the Mensa members behind us start going "EWWW, GROSS! OMG THAT'S SO GROSS." I was too shocked to say anything. It wasn't just them saying it, either. About a dozen people scattered across the theatre gasped or said something to that effect. It's times like this I wish I was sitting with a fellow thesbian, so we could stand up and make out in front of everyone and be all, "eat it, homophobes."
My brother suggested that the women behind us (they had male escourts who didn't say quite as much) reacted in such a way not so much because they were actually disgusted, but because they "were disappointed in the fact that they couldn't picture themselves getting with Cooper if he's playing gay." This enraged me even more (got a lota rage apparently), because come on now. As if every film I see elicits this kind of reaction from me: "WTF Kate Winslet, you're playing straight again?!? EWW GROSS!"
How far have we come, then? I mean, if people still see absolutely no problem in so blatantly expressing their horror and disgust at such a minor affectionate act...ugggh welcome to my city. One of which I'm usually quite proud. But let's think about this - homophobic movie slurs (in under a year): Hometown: 2, Other City: 0. Having homophobic slurs specifically directed at me/who I'm with: Hometown: 2, Other City: 0. Makes me a little hesitant to move back...but I guess if you want progress you've got to start somewhere.
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