Aurora, Dark Knight, and Spoilers

I know everyone is talking about this issue, and I know it's been a week basically so I'm a little late to the subject. But I watch a show on Hulu called Spoilers with Kevin Smith. It's a weekly online only show where Kevin Smith takes an audience to see a movie together and then brings them back to do the Spoiler show where they talk about how they felt about that movie. The people in the audience aren't critics; they're normal people who like movies and have opinions. In the most recent episode, Kevin Smith talked about how this most recent episode was supposed to be his favorite because he knew that he was going to see The Dark Knight Rises, and he had been looking forward to it for so long. When the tragedy hit, the people at Spoilers were at a loss as to what to do because the show is normally very upbeat, excited, even silly sometimes about the movies that they see and obviously that wouldn't be appropriate. So Kevin and his people decided to still go see the movie because they didn't want this lunatic to win, and they still wanted to support the movie. Then they came back and filmed a more somber show where the "spoilers" (which is the audience) got to talk about how the tragedy affected them and their movie-going experience. I have to say that I think it was a wonderful thing that Kevin and the show did. I think it is so important for real people, not just media people, to have a candid dialogue about this tragedy and how it has affected us. I know that no one else in the U.S. is as affected as the people who were actually in the tragedy and our hearts certainly go out to them, but I also know that I'm not the only one who is personally emotionally affected when a real-life horrible thing like this occurs. Whatever the media may think or say, I don't think the violence in movies or shows has desensitized me to the violence and horror that takes place in real life, and I certainly don't believe that violence in movies or shows can cause or increase the likelihood of violent acts in real life.

I love so many of the things that Kevin Smith said about the subject. Kevin was talking about how, even though he never wanted to feel this way because he didn't want this crazy man to change his love for going to the movies, he found himself noticing people in the theater more and pausing to make sure that everything was still safe. I thought that was so poignant. I went to see The Dark Knight Rises on Saturday with a friend, and I had a similar moment in the theater because of this tragedy. I was watching a particularly harrowing scene where the "bad guy" was starting to take over the city and there was shooting and people panicking, and the whole time I thought to myself "this feeling I'm having now was real for those people in Aurora." I felt so uneasy and almost choked up by the experience.

While I know that it is important to keep ourselves safe, and I certainly hope that nothing like this happens again ever, I hope too that we all are able to process our feelings about this tragedy and return to a sense of normalcy. I hope, like Kevin Smith, that we are able to go back to seeing movies without fear but with enjoyment again because I think that, if nothing else, movies - the stories that they tell, that we share - are an important get-away or release in our lives. I think it's sad that this event has given us reason to pause about the whole movie-going experience, but I hope it doesn't last. I also hope for a swift recovery for those who were injured or emotionally scarred by this event, and I also mourn with the families who lost a loved one.

If you'd like to check out Spoilers with Kevin Smith, here's a link.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/383117

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