Time for some more infoage14 therapy. I cringe at saying this, but I REALLY don’t like movies. I especially HATE going to movie theaters. I actually do not like the immersive experience of going to the movies. It might sound funny, but movies are too intense for me, even in home theaters. The sounds and the images just create too much emotion for me to enjoy watching movies. Add vibrations, a large screen, and a crowd of people silently watching in the dark, and going to the movie theater becomes a stressful experience for me. So I just don’t go to the movies. On occasion, my boyfriend can persuade me to watch a movie on Netflix. So what does this mean besides me being side-lined for class discussions about the cultural and social experiences of going to the movies?

I have incredibly large gaps in my cultural knowledge. I’d never seen any of the movies my group was given to act out in charades during class. But I’m not completely alone. Perhaps I’m the only one in class, but there is a significant minority of people in the United States who have gaps in their cultural knowledge because they don’t see movies for religious, cultural, economic, or personal reasons. I found it interesting how assumptions about common experiences dominated class discussion when the definition of such a mainstream experience as watching movies could be challenged demographically. Maybe the mostly white, female, middle-class infoage14 class shares common experiences and cultural knowledge, but are these experiences shared across the United States? -They certainly weren’t at my demographically diverse high school.

So what have I gained from not watching movies? I guess you could say a different perspective on both the films and the cultural experiences of watching them.