- (a) get my money's worth out of the fee
- (b) watch films!
- (c) get my money's worth out of the fee
Paying a flat rate every month means I will take a punt on some films that I wouldn't generally otherwise see, and that I certainly wouldn't risk £10 a ticket on. Even when I see a complete dud of a film (no names, but The End and The Harry Hill Movie spring unbidden to mind as 90 minutes each that I won't get back and could have spent more gainfully, like creosoting my toenails or spitting into the rain) it's not an occasion for a rueful kick at the waste of money but rather an opportunity to marvel that there were people in the world different enough from me to enjoy the shocking spectacle I'd have preferred to walk out of, and to wonder whether church is offering these people adequate chance to meet with God.
(Started well, that sentence, but it got away from me.)
In a busy world… in a world that is ever more fragmented into cultural niches… in the echo chamber that is Facebook where I only ever read the posts of like-minded people… well, it's good to cross a cultural divide. See what the other half watch. And instead of simply watching the films I know I'll like and that will pander to my liberal agenda, I get to see things that challenge me. A recent Jewish film festival! I even saw a chick flick recently. And a mindless action thriller. And Olympus Has Fallen. And The Heat.
What I'm saying is, get out of your comfort zone - in life and at the cinema and in the Radio Times and Netflix - and watch something new. Something stretching. Something you might hate.
Part of the problems of 2016 has been that - as a Remain supporter in the Referendum - my newsfeed was full of sympathetic Remain posts and people. It led to complacency because I rarely met a Leave voter - and yet!
The Echo Chamber we call freedom.
Similarly in the States, most Clinton supporters thought Hilary had it sewn up, because their news feeds were full of reasons to disparage Trump, comedy comments on his latest faux pas… and yet!
Pretty well.
So yesterday I went to see a largely female coming-of-age film called The Edge Of Seventeen. Not my usual fare. Actually very funny, very serious, and in terms of gender and generation - as far as anyone can distinguish - eye-opening. A window on another world.
A window on a world other than mine!
Which reminded me that it's not the first film called Edge Of Seventeen. The first was an American coming-of-age film about a young gay man. And when I saw that I learned much about what it meant to be American and gay and of an age that came of age in the 1980s. Another window on another world.
Another window, another world!
And today there was a report out. Dame Louise Casey finds that segregation and social exclusion are at worrying levels. Not universally, but there seem to be less bridges between different ethnic groups. Less understanding between different people. Disquieting returns of homophobia and misogyny. A slow-down in the acceptance of trans issues.
Don't let all that hard work be undone...
The incarnation - God moving heaven and earth to cross the bridge between him and us - is a good reason to get off our collective bum-bums and leave our comfort zone for a while - maybe first of all by experiencing different worlds at a distance through the window of cinema. And then it becomes a reason to turn off Netflix, leave the cinema and go and meet some of these people I've learned a little about on the screen. Build a bridge. Start a conversation with a Muslim woman, a gay man, a trans teen, someone festooned in piercings and inked all over with tattoos. Or an elderly white woman. A Tory. Find some safe space, ask some questions, admit to some prejudices, beat back ignorance, make a friend.
More people doing this, please!
Or just read all this, nod sagely at the way my liberal agenda matches yours, and get your favourite box set out for a comfortable re-watch.
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