Summer Camp

Or, detailing my futile attempts to police people's reaction to art

A few weeks back, on Mother’s Day, I screened MILDRED PIERCE and MOMMIE DEAREST back-to-back at the theater where I program films. Both films drew a sizable audience of folks who audibly enjoyed the movies as they screened. For MILDRED PIERCE, a noir-inspired melodrama about an industrious mother (Joan Crawford) whose success is nearly toppled by the scheming of her greedy daughter, the audience was subdued but respectful - you could feel the film’s twists and turns pulling the audience to the edge of their seats as the film raced towards its climax. For MOMMIE DEAREST, a notorious biopic about Crawford told from the perspective of her adopted daughter, the audience behaved slightly differently.

I sincerely enjoy MOMMIE DEAREST for what it is - a weirdo artifact of a bloated studio system eager to eat its own for the sake of profit. The film is mean-spirited, knowingly campy, and delightfully unhinged. It’s also one heck of an entertaining movie. Even as I sat in the theater with a grin plastered on my face through most of the film, I couldn’t help but feel a little weird listening to the theater fill with guffaws and shrieks of laughter as a child is beaten with a wire hanger. When I returned home after the screening, I tried to explain the movie to my wife and showed her the “No wire hangers!” clip from the film on YouTube. She sat in stony silence, her non-reaction drilling in how incredibly disturbing the movie is when taken outside of context.

Or taken within context, to be honest. Several guests approached me after the MOMMIE DEAREST screening to ask why the audience was laughing at the film. I tried to explain the movie's historical context and how it was marketed as a comedy by Paramount after its initial release bombed at the box office. I tried to talk about the phenomenon where some audiences react to disturbing material with irony as a coping mechanism - if you can show you’re above the movie, it won’t affect you as much. But neither of these answers did much to assuage the concerned guests’s concerns that they had likely just watched a movie with a theater full of sociopaths.

Last week, I watched FINAL DESTINATION: BLOODLINES in 4DX. I’ve written in the past about my love for the 4DX experience. You sit in a mini roller coaster and are tossed, twisted, massaged, and spat on by pre-programmed machines designed to immerse you in the film you’re watching. For certain movies - movies like FINAL DESTINATION: BLOODLINES, for example - it really is the best way to watch the movie. The audience was rowdy as all get out - shrieking out “Oh, hell no!”’s after each death, like a parishioner might drop a “hallelujah” in church. The FINAL DESTINATION series is known for its creative and gory deaths. Each of the films has personally instilled in me a new fear. I wasn’t afraid of MRI machines. After BLOODLINES, there’s a strong chance I will never again go to a hospital. It is better to die in the woods than experience the death the film promised any stupid S.O.B. who wonders too close to those magnetic death traps.

As I sat in the audience, watching BLOODLINES, I couldn’t help but wonder what an alien might think watching us laugh and howl as members of our species were sent to the afterlife in the most undignified ways imaginable. Why do we laugh at things we’re not supposed to? Is it a way to conquer fears? Fears of death or the fear of socially mandated morals? Is laughing at camp a primal form of postering? A pounding of the chest as we show all the other kids in the playground that we’re bigger, brighter, and tougher than sincere emotion.

I’ve been in the theatrical industry for almost fifteen years. I’ve seen thousands of films with audiences and seen people react to things in widely different ways. I once saw a man get out of his chair and throw a beer can at a group of people laughing too much during a screening of ROAD HOUSE. I’ve watched a group of friends loudly guffaw throughout a private screening of one of the saddest movies I’ve ever seen (FLUKE). I’ve also seen a film play to wild laughs at a festival (THE COFFEE TABLE) and then play to stunned silence at a screening in the suburbs.

It’s impossible to predict how a movie will affect its audience. You can watch the same film at two different screenings in a single day and get two widely different reactions. One man’s camp is another man’s masterpiece.

And yet…

While I have personally stopped trying to police people’s reactions to movies, I cannot stand the “so bad it’s good” mentality that leads people to beat up on a movie like they are a new prisoner going after the biggest, toughest jailbird in the yard. In my opinion, if a film makes you laugh, it’s not a bad movie. If you are experiencing joy in watching a film (and what is laughter if not a side-effect of joy), it’s just plain good. Have fun with a movie. If a film’s weirdness makes you laugh, laugh. But don’t force comedy where it does not organically grow. I’ve seen people go into a movie ready to role-play their Mystery Science Theater 3000 fantasies - and this is a trap. Do not approach a film like you’re approaching a wrestling match. If you start a movie ready to dominate the film, you’ve already failed as an audience member.

Meet a film on its own domain - get down in the mud and get your hands dirty. I think you’ll be surprised by how many movies are weird and silly on purpose. And even the films that are accidentally operating on a wavelength alien to the rest of humanity are still doing exactly what the directed intended them to do. Let a film work you over, not the other way around.

I sincerely think you’ll find yourself having a lot more fun when you watch a movie if you stop trying to perform for others around you and just let the film take you where it wants you to go.