So on Friday Susan and I saw Deadpool at Alamo Drafthouse. It was fun except that the movie brought out a lot of older guys who laughed so overloud as to deafen the ears and take away from the humor of the film. Does it make me a bad person to be annoyed at the happiness of others? I think I’m more of an accepting cynic with a dash of contemptuousness. I’m annoyed that we all act out of self-interest but am generally ok with this facet of human nature (plus I’m no different). Thus the conjured images of the defilers’ female companions hiding their faces every time their man-child lesser-half bleated out another honking laugh in the middle of a joke which warranted no more than a chuckle (at best) and smothered the actual punch line was enough to assuage my urge to rant poetic about the experience. Some of it anyways.
I thought I stood beside these “men” as a fan of such things but don’t believe so anymore. I’d see this as hypocritical in that by judging them I realize I am also judging a piece of myself. An innocence I’ve grasped onto my entire life. The ability to buy into the silly plots and say to myself, “this makes some kind of sense.” Empathy. Empathy not in that I can imagine myself in someone else’s shoes and so feel their feelings but that I can imagine another’s imagination and thus partake in their fantasy. I wonder if this judging of others and, ultimately, self is what drives us apart. My embarrassment of and for these movie-goers is because I perceive their outbursts as childish and I don’t want to be seen as a child. So instead of laughing with them I laugh at them to create distance between us. And by doing so I betray that piece of myself. That innocence. That willingness to imagine the possibilities of… whatever. Eventually I might abscond myself from all things not based in my narrow scope of reality. Perhaps it’ll be a clean break. Today I’m this and tomorrow I’m that. More likely it will happen through a cycle of shame of self and others. When does self deprecation become destruction of self? When does the floor tilt far enough that everything slides under the rails and into oblivion? I don’t believe this imagination is ever completely lost though. This truth makes the new self all the more tragic. The more I lose the more I’ll judge others and that shrinking part of myself. Ah, the shame of the rant coming full circle. The shame.
Next time I think we’ll just wait a few more weeks before seeing a movie like this one to let the true fans get their fun in. Then we’ll take our grumpy selves to the theater for a quiet and measured experience.
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