It breaks my heart when I see those stars / Smashing a perfectly good Sub-Zero

Usually I leave discussions of film etiquette to the pro in the family, but following an ill-considered trip to Loews Boston Common,  I am conducting a feasibility study on a presidential campaign on the following platform:

Parents who bring squalling infants to the movies should be sterilized, and their children should be sent to work in textile factories in China.

I am still working on a foreign policy and an economic plan, but the spectatorship plank is solid. Note that I modify "infant"  with "squalling." If you are feeling lucky, and hoping that Trevor or Bethany will be quiet for the duration, go ahead and gamble your $10.25, but get your ass to the lobby if the kid starts hollering--standing up in the aisle with an inconsolable moppet is no less distracting.
The movie we attempted to see under these conditions was a little picture called Mr. & Mrs. Smith. It is possible that the distracting kerfuffle surrounding its principals has stifled conversation about what a curious little film this is. Forget the allegory of deadening, Ref-stizz marriages as battles to death--this is Fight Club a few years older and moved to the suburbs, which I observed to my seatmate even before the kid from the OC turned up in a Hot Topic-distressed Fight Club tee. Like FC,  this movie fetishizes and then destroys the accouterments of a particular demographic, in this case Williams-Sonoma, rather than Ikea: the glee with which Brad and Angie shoot up their Scarsdale palace (kudos to the stylist who had the bullets  dent the door of the Sub-Zero, but not exit)  was contagious, and may be the best reason to see the film in the theater,  just because it is so perverse. Perverse, because the life Brad and Angie lead, the cover life represented as so boring, is far beyond the means of the vast majority of the folks who will see this film. In light of the ongoing discussion of class in America Punch and his lads cooked up, it would be good to figure out just what is so compelling about watching movie stars pretend to destroy appliances we dream of owning. In light of the popularity of kitchen porn, is kitchen snuff the inevitable consequence?
If you need me, I will be at Kitchen Arts, fondling the Sabatier machete.

Comments

[sac]

I agree and I'm a parent.

[Skeen]

I feel your pain, Cod, but at the same time I have to say that in the long run it's not you and the rest of the theater-going audience that I pity, it's the infant. And not only does said infant have to suffer the effects of watching Brad and Angelina shoot it out pointlessly and noisily on a scary, gigantic screen, and not only does said infant have to suffer the effects of being raised by parents who would bring a child to such a film, but said infant now also has to go work in a textiles factory in China? Seems a bit "de trop" for an innocent.

[Fesser]

Fair enough, Skeen. I had wondered about the fate of the toddler at the same theater who had a hard time with Spiderman the first, but the milkman of human kindness must have skipped me yesterday, b/c antipathy won out out over empathy. In the cah, I expressed my dismay to c.trix that the world seemed to be polarizing into demanding parents and intolerant non-parents, and my post does not help that. To re-focus, the the real challenge seems to be locating those likely to bring their infants to the movies before they have children, and preventing them from breeding. In the absence of pre-cogs, I suggest a pre-emptive sterilization of folks who have extended personal conversations on their cell phones while on Amtrak or the bus.

[medictbg]

Along those lines, there are certain movies where children should not be taken. A few years ago I went to the movies and the grandmotherly lady in front of me demanded her money back because she didn't like the tone of the movie she had taken her children (10 & 11) to see. The movie was, "Austin Powers: The Spy who Shagged Me" which was rated PG-13. She felt it should have been an R to which I responded "Lady, it's PG-13 which means nobody under 13. Besides did you look at the title? Did you think it was about carpets?" She had no response.

[jette]

The Alamo theater chain here in central Texas sets aside a few daytime screenings once a week as Baby Day, in which people can bring all the squalling infants they want. I think this is a great way to rectify the situation ... after all, what happens when film geeks breed? (I assume some of them do.) But I fear that the people who don't move their crying kids out of a nighttime screening are possibly too clueless or too self-centered to realize they should consider watching their movies on Baby Day instead.

[sac]

Baby days are great, pioneered by the Parkway in Oakland, I believe, but most places don't have an incredibly cool independent theater nearby.

As for exposing kids to inappropriate movies, it is rampant. We saw Cell in a theater with a mother and her 3 kids, all under 10 sitting in the row in front of us. That movie was fucking disturbing, but hey, whatever.

[cinetrix]

Jette, "When Film Geeks Breed" sounds like the title of the next Project Greenlight horror flick. Although, to be fair, I did once make an investigative foray to one of the Brattle's midweek, midday, kid-friendly showings, without even a stunt baby, and it was quite tolerable. [Also, a relief to discover that procreation need not equal cultural isolation.]

Sac, the Fesser was exposed to Lina Wertmueller flicks and "Peppermint Soda" at a tender age by his academic parents--not exactly appropriate movies, either. But I am wildly jealous nonetheless.

[la_depressionada]

babies do not belong at masa. they do not belong in coffeehouses. they do not belong at brunch. they do not belong at the movies. they also do not belong in airplanes. i'm all for family steerage (uh i guess that's tourist class), indeed perhaps separate planes, for families and the worst of all horrors: honeymooners.

the occasional preternaturally mature child is acceptable at the movies, they have to be 2 or 3 at least, but if you do that to your kid you are almost assured of a neurotic mess of an adult. (my brother and i saw movies like citta aperta and the virgin spring at like 5 & 6, believe me it didn't do us any favors.)

caveat: this seems mostly applicable to american kids; european kids are somehow QUIETER. maybe it's because their parents leave them outside the zinc in their baby carriages while they stop in for a quick demi.

[sac]

NO no, it's because Europeans take their kids EVERYWHERE. So you see, la d, your all children left behind policy is only furthering the American brat phenomenon. American kids need to be taken out MORE, if only to aclimate them to the proper behavior in public places. I'm serious.

[Skeen]

I lean towards agreeing with Sac -- assuming that he means that American kids need to be taken out more by European parents, not by their own, clueless ones?