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I will be talking a great deal about the movie Lincoln in the next week. I am overwhelmed by emotion this evening. First, I saw the movie in North Aurora Illinois. I have seen so many movies in Gulf Breeze over the years and would like to share my observations.
In the late 70s when I worked with the Borg Warner Corporation there was a period I lived and worked in the State of Illinois. I went to movies in Illinois. My experience was very similar to going to a movie in Gulf Breeze. I saw people who looked like me, and talked like me. When I go to Gulf Breeze I see blonde hair, and often people as tall as I am. There are exceptions, but I mostly see white faces.
This evening I saw young people lined up to see all the hip movies that makes youth so exciting. I waited in line, and immediately looked over 100 people and nobody had light hair, and nobody was even close to my height. Clearly these young people were of Hispanic heritage and their skin was darker than mine, but as I listened to their conversations.....I could be in Gulf Breeze....just kids being kids....excited and youthful and Americanized as my children were at their age.
Now I arrived early thinking that Lincoln would be sold out, but as I wrapped around the lines to the doors of the Hip movies, with short brown skinned youthful exuberance, I entered an empty theater for lincoln a half hour before the start. I watched the next half hour as mostly white middle age and older folks like me streamed into the theater. It almost filled but it was a white older crowd which looked nothing like the throng of young people waiting in line to watch another vampire movie, or somebody getting taken........It was a stark contrast.
At the end of the movie, I have never seen a standing ovation in a theater....never.....I saw old white people cheering about the 13th amendment, and the beauty of this evening is the very folks who have enjoyed the sacrifices of so many..... simply did not attend this movie, and chose the American Dream of mindless hollywood pap being parceled out by the shovel full.....and at that moment I realized Lincoln's dreams and the divine intervention that allowed the realization of the same has been actualized.......and this epiphany came with $11 for a drink and popcorn.......only in America.
In the late 70s when I worked with the Borg Warner Corporation there was a period I lived and worked in the State of Illinois. I went to movies in Illinois. My experience was very similar to going to a movie in Gulf Breeze. I saw people who looked like me, and talked like me. When I go to Gulf Breeze I see blonde hair, and often people as tall as I am. There are exceptions, but I mostly see white faces.
This evening I saw young people lined up to see all the hip movies that makes youth so exciting. I waited in line, and immediately looked over 100 people and nobody had light hair, and nobody was even close to my height. Clearly these young people were of Hispanic heritage and their skin was darker than mine, but as I listened to their conversations.....I could be in Gulf Breeze....just kids being kids....excited and youthful and Americanized as my children were at their age.
Now I arrived early thinking that Lincoln would be sold out, but as I wrapped around the lines to the doors of the Hip movies, with short brown skinned youthful exuberance, I entered an empty theater for lincoln a half hour before the start. I watched the next half hour as mostly white middle age and older folks like me streamed into the theater. It almost filled but it was a white older crowd which looked nothing like the throng of young people waiting in line to watch another vampire movie, or somebody getting taken........It was a stark contrast.
At the end of the movie, I have never seen a standing ovation in a theater....never.....I saw old white people cheering about the 13th amendment, and the beauty of this evening is the very folks who have enjoyed the sacrifices of so many..... simply did not attend this movie, and chose the American Dream of mindless hollywood pap being parceled out by the shovel full.....and at that moment I realized Lincoln's dreams and the divine intervention that allowed the realization of the same has been actualized.......and this epiphany came with $11 for a drink and popcorn.......only in America.
