I saw Spiderman Into the Spider-verse last night and it was good, but I wasn’t. I did something terrible at the theater. I had a chance to be a hero and I stayed silent. and the guilt is eating away at my soul.
I went to a late evening showing and there were only 2 other couples in there with us. One was two rows in front of me and when the movie ended… they got up… and LEFT. Before the after-credits scenes!
They lingered for just a moment and seemed to shuffle off. I felt guilty because I think it might have been a young adult male there with his mom and I’m up there behind him – a cool guy with a sexy blonde girl – and I can’t help but feel like he didn’t want to linger because he was embarrassed by comparison. That’s how teenager me would have felt. I would have looked up at stupid cool-guy & hotgirl and felt like hot garbage – thankful, but also ashamed that in order to not see the movie alone, I had my mom.
Now, I hope this wasn’t the case, and granted – my only clues to this theoretical scenario were that he paused for a moment and then directed the lady out + my “everything is always about me” lens that I filter all situations through, but I can’t shake the suspicion and it makes my crime of silence two-fold, because –
1: I knew there would be an after-credits scene and I knew he enjoyed the movie because he laughed at funny parts and audibly reacted here and there, so he definitely would have enjoyed the extra scene at the end and I wielded the power to grant him that enjoyment and I didn’t. It was on the tip of my tongue to say “I think there’s an after credits” and I just let them go in silence. I rationalized it to myself that they got up and left too quickly but that’s bullshit. I had the time. I could have gotten that simple sentence out. It was articulated and chambered and ready to fire and I just didn’t say it.
and
2: If my theory is true that he wanted to escape the shame of my presence, then saying something as simple as “I think there’s an after credits” neutralizes that imbalance. It levels the playing field through contact that displays equality as a sign that I don’t think I’m better than him and that we’re both just Spider-man lovers there to enjoy the movie together and that he doesn’t need to feel bad and instead can feel glad and at peace about the night and the shared experience.
I hate myself. With great power comes great responsibility, and I always promised to use that power responsibly. As a young Peter Parker I watched cool guys on tv and out in the real world and promised that if I ever had their super powers I would use them to foster inclusivity and lift up other Peters and inspire them and help tear down the bad guys with their cool-guy villainous super powers from the inside – and when I got bit by the radio-active cool-guy spider that gave me those powers, I set out to do just that. And yet here, I failed. And for no reason. With no excuse. I just let them leave. I said nothing. I could have made his night marginally better and instead at best I had no effect and at worst, I made it marginally worse.
This is not the way… I must do better.
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