Tuesday, September 14, 2004

Sneaking food into Shrek

Rarely do I see a movie at a first-run theater. It's just too expensive. Usually I just rent them, but occasionally we go to the dollar movies, which of course really cost two dollars, except on Tuesdays, when they have nostalgia or something and charge only one dollar.



So I took my kids to see Shrek 2 this afternoon. I conceded to the high prices (now you know why it's called a concession stand) and bought popcorn, but there was no way I was paying the high prices for their candy. So I took the kids to the grocery store before the movie and bought some treats, which we sneaked into the theater.



This disturbed my eight-year-old son, who questioned the morality of our actions. Was this a despicable immoral act I committed in front of my children? If we hadn't brought candy into the theater, I still wouldn't have spent the money on candy at the concessions. We would have just gone without. So the theater didn't lose any money because of it. (Of course, you recognize the thought process here: it's exactly the same sort of rationalization many people give for online music swapping: we wouldn't buy the high-priced albums anyway, so nobody's really losing money.)



Do I need to repent?



Oh, and by the way, I thought Shrek 2 was better than the first one.

2 comments:

Titus Todd said...

If you need to repent than so do I. We do the exact same thing. Of course, the prices they charge for candy is robbery but I guess that may be more rationalization.

How was the adult humor in Shrek 2? That was the biggest problem I had with the first Shrek.

Christopher Bradford (Grasshopper) said...

I know what you mean about the adult humor. There was some of that in Shrek 2 as well. I didn't think there was as much inappropriate adult humor in it as there was in the first Shrek.