In shutdown, a glimpse of life without movie theaters
NEW YORK (AP) — Jennifer Page jokes that four months in, this decade is already the worst of her life.
A server at a nearby resort, she’s out of work due to the pandemic. After someone tested positive at her mother’s nursing home, Page moved her into a room off the dining room. Two weeks ago, her father died. The day after his memorial, she and her family went for a walk, and her 5-yearold daughter, Roxa, asked for something coveted by children for more than a century.
“She was just like, ‘Mama, when this is over, can we go to the movies?’” recalled Page, 36, of Buffalo. “She went through the whole process of going to the movies. She said, ‘We can get popcorn and each have our own drink and each get a candy.’”
The coronavirus pandemic is forcing Americans to journey through hardship without some of the reliable comforts of hard times. One of them is the movies. For more than a century, movie theaters have been a refuge, a communal escape, a place for popcorn-chomping-dreaming-with-youreyes-open transportation away from everything else.
A world without movie theaters, like the one we’re temporarily inhabiting, has long been foretold. It’s been predicted with every major technological advancement in media, and especially since the advent of streaming. Cinemas, so inconveniently located outside the home, are a dinosaur, analysts have said — one that’s on its way out.
Now, we’re getting a glimpse of life without movie theaters. Most see this as an opening for streaming services, hastening their expected takeover. But it has also brought a renewed appreciation for the pleasures of going to the movies and clarified their unique role in social life. Isolation has only illuminated the power of sitting together in the dark.
“It’s one of those things you can’t really appreciate something until it’s taken away from you,” says John Bell, president of the Tampa Theatre, a 1920s-era movie palace. “This has certainly accelerated a dystopian future look at what the landscape could look like. But I just innately believe that humans are social creatures and, ultimately, they will want to gather again. Streaming is great, it’s convenient. But it’s just not the same.”
Nearly a month of shelter-in-place orders have forced some to hanker for the sticky floors of cinemas like never before. Sure, those people texting a few seats over were always a nuisance and the films weren’t always so great. But peruse social media lists of “What I’m going to do when this is over” and you will see countless cravings for the big screen and a tub of popcorn.