At the recent screening when I saw A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, I was unlucky enough to sit next to a couple of chatty millennials, who spent nearly the entire movie making comments to each other and being a bit of a distraction.
On the one hand, it kinda sucked; those two definitely affected my movie-going experience.
But on the other hand, I really couldn’t blame them.
After all, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood went off the air on August 31, 2001, just before my seatmates were probably old enough to watch and appreciate it. Mister Rogers himself passed away less than two years later, on February 27, 2003. So I chose to attribute these twentysomethings’ lack of engagement in what was going on on-screen to the fact that Mister Rogers hadn’t had the same effect on their lives that he had on mine — and on the lives of so many other people around my age and older, who grew up with him and his daily TV show. Because of this, I suspect my seat mates were just less invested in the movie than I was.
As a result, rather than be angry about the distraction, I found myself feeling sorry for these kids. Continue reading
Martin's Musings 