We went to see Toy Story 3 today and as I sat there I thought just how much things have changed since I was my youngest daughters’ age.
I remember going to the cinema to see the first David Attenborough movie about apes getting drunk on the rotting fruit of a tree. I think the film was in two parts and halfway through two ladies appeared either side of the huge screen with a tray of dodgy choc-ices. The cinema was packed. My father didn’t appreciate being in such close quarters to the great unwashed in case his suit got a spec or crease on it, oh what a joyous family trip that was! My sister must have been there but as is (what I thought was) normal for sisters, we hated eachother in those days.
My girls are strangely lovely to eachother almost all the time (is that normal?). The cinema seats these days are plush, they don’t numb your bottom after 3 minutes and you can see the screen even when someone is sitting in front of you (even the children can), which I find quite a novelty! I felt sick after 20 minutes of trashy adverts for plastic tasting sweets and Pizza purveyors.
Then we were subjected to another 20 minutes of future feature trailers (please can’t we have these instead of adverts?). After that there were more adverts for pizzas and Coca Cola (just in case we’d forgotten their existance). It wasn’t so much subliminal advertising as screaming it into our faces until we’d agree to anything so long as they’d show the bloody film!!!! And then the film started and I found myself pressing back into the seat wishing I wasn’t quite so close to the action and fiddling in my pockets for tissues to stuff into my ears..why does it have to be so loud?
I have to confess I was losing the will to live by the time Toy Story finally started and I really thought there was going to be a standing ovation from the rest of the people in the audience because in fairness, 50 minutes of stuff you don’t want to see is a bit much. But I got to thinking that so much has changed, of course it has, but I mean what is it all about? Why are the adverts screaming buy ice-cream, sugary fattening drinks and don’t forget to spend £10 on a bag of rubberised Pick and Mix when we all hear and read in the news that child obesity and diabetes is a serious epidemic waiting to happen? Am I the only person to notice? When I was little I loved Rice Krispies and hot milk on Weetabix, I still do in fact. The choice of cereals then was those two plus cornflakes, sugar puffs (I never understood those) and ready brek, now there is an aisle the length of the Welsh Border with every conceivable slant on a cereal imaginable! I admit I did buy some chocolate Weetabix myself a few weeks ago, but only after checking it against a thousand other chocolate cereals for no excess sugar and rubbish e-numbers.
The staff in Waitrose started bringing me tea and biscuits before I even got halfway down the aisle! I think it’s great to move with the times and enjoy the innovations and new ideas but I’m sure I won’t be making too many trips to the 8 screen cinema wondering what on earth it’s all about. I shall go to our small local Victorian cinema, whose only changes since I was small is to put slightly better heating in. I love having a few mod cons around me, but I’m not a Frog like likes too much change. I even like my car making the same clunks and engine sounds as my fathers did back in the 70′s even though mine is a model from this century. I like my hot weetabix…but a bit of chocolate is always good isn’t it?
