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Sunday, February 1, 2009

Seinfeld

I was perusing one of our local film critic's blogs today and this is what he had to say.

Being a former movie theatre employee, I can comfirm that he nailed it right on the head. And I'm jealous he ranted about it before I thought of it. I guess it doesn't affect me directly anymore.

I have heard both of those excuses before ("I paid so much for it" and "hey, they have to do something at their jobs, right?") and they are both crocks of shit. Do you throw your tray and trash on the floor after you eat your McDonalds? Do you pour the last of your backwash beer on the floor and toss the pint glass over your shoulder in the Alibi?

We would find half eaten bags of heavily buttered popcorn literally dumped all over the floor. Even leaving it upright would have been too kind of a gesture.

Nowhere do you make such a seemingly intentional mess (well, maybe the ballpark now that I think about it). And at every restaurant you pay a lot more than you normally would for a meal or drink.

The worst part is the blanket acceptance of this attitude towards the service industry (who, by the way, are actual living, thinking humans).

At the 2007 Academy Awards (see, it comes full circle back to an Oscars rant) Jerry Seinfeld performed a simultaneously yawn-inducing and rage-affecting bit (listen to it here). This uncanny feat was a drawn out joke which heard JS state that since he had pays 5 dollars for popcorn, he can do whatever the fuck he wants with it.

This privileged, cavalier, carelessness is just one example of the attitudin' that America really needs to be losin'.

Side note: I guess Jerry also got some flak for his dismissal of documentaries as a worthy subject.

HA!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I do agree with you, people are lazy when it comes to throwing away food in movie theaters. However, many theaters do not even have a garbage can in or around the theater. Sometimes the nearest trash can is over by the bathrooms. I'll bet that most of the popcorn and soda on the ground is kicked over while people are leaving the theater.

While this is not an excuse for the behavior of the movie-going customers, it does not put them entirely at fault. The theater has some responsibility in the matter.

Grant Scott-Goforth said...

Fair enough, though the theatres I have worked for all had trash cans right outside the theatre entrance. And I may have embellished the frequency of the really bad messes, but still.

Christina said...

jerry seinfeld came to my high school and was "principal for a day"

you have no idea how dumb that day was. and how much it screwed with our vodka drinking in the bathroom.

Grant Scott-Goforth said...

God that sounds terrible. I mean, I like seinfeld the show (although it needs to go out of syndication already), but in retrospect that was pretty much all LD, right?

Christina said...

i assume as much. but then clearly whoever else was on board found the right way to tailor LD's stuff. because when you watch CYE it gets somewhat exhausting in its crash-and-burnness. while seinfeld was just the perfect amount of painful.

at least, in my opinion. but the chemistry between everyone on that show was so amazing it almost seemed like the writers didnt have to do shit.