 by Julian Spivey
This is an entertainment website, meaning that myself and the other people who write for this website take entertainment very seriously. Artistry should be taken seriously. However, I can’t help but think that some people take what really amounts to a few hours of escapism far too seriously and multiple things about this past weekend have proven this to me. Everybody knew going into last weekend that the release of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” was going to lead to record-breaking box office madness and it did. However, some of the madness is far too over the top. People act like the ‘Star Wars’ universe is so much more than a fictional movie. They treat it like it’s a beloved member of their family and reach over-exuberant levels of excitement with it and when something goes wrong with it, like a movie projector failing midway through a showing, they frankly turn a little bit insane. This happened over the weekend at an Arclight Cinema theater in Hollywood when a movie projector stalled and then later began the film 15 minutes later in the movie. What ensued was a group of adults pitching an epic fit that would put preschoolers fighting over the same toy to shame. Footage of this was uploaded to social media by multiple moviegoers at the theater. Note videos captured here just involve fans yelling and don't even capture the hysteria that took place when the film jumped 15 minutes in time. Supposedly fans were even running out of the theater with their eyes closed so not to spoil anything in the movie. It’s also important to note that some of the yelling and outbursts were likely intentionally over-exaggerated for comical effect. Now, don’t get me wrong. A projector malfunctioning is something that’s happened to many of us before during a movie and it’s always at the very least an annoyance. I can imagine how that would be magnified by it occurring during a movie someone’s waited a good decade to see. But, it’s not something that should be capable of “ruining our night” as one moviegoer told a local television affiliate. If ‘Star Wars’ fans going crazy over a malfunctioning projector wasn’t bad enough, then there was the Miss Universe Pageant hubbub on Sunday night. Comedian Steve Harvey, host of the pageant, mistakenly named Miss Columbia the winner of Miss Universe instead of actual winner Miss Philippines and the entirety of the Internet seemed to react as if Harvey had murdered one of the contestants on stage instead of simply misspeaking. Something that was an honest mistake and shouldn’t have garnered any traction at all blew up into one of the biggest viral stories of the year thanks to over-exaggerated reactions from people watching the pageant at home (by the way why do so many of you actually watch these beauty pageants?). The only people affected by Harvey’s mistake were himself, Miss Columbia and Miss Philippines and yet so many people are acting hurt or offended by an easy to make flub – what does that truly say about this country? That really brings these overreactions to my main point. There are so many truly horrible things going on in this world, many of which we could attempt or try to fix or at least make better and instead of caring about the long list of things we can fix we worry about blockbuster movie franchises and beauty pageants like they have some do or die relevance on our lives. We all overreact to things from time to time in our lives. I’m not trying to be holier than though and act like I’ve never done something similar about something that others would find trivial. It’s just that these two moments occurring in the same weekend, especially during the Holiday season, have me wondering if the priorities for this country aren’t completely backwards or at least off-kilter. Let’s try to do something good or important and not worry about the little things that ultimately have no bearing on our lives. And, enjoy your entertainment, but don’t live and breathe it.
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