Harry Potter & Gelas Berapi

This post have been printed in The Star on 7th Dec 2005. Click here to view. I hope it will make a difference in making Malaysia a better place to live on.

Recently, concurrent with the school holiday, there’s a horde of films for children. there’s Sky High, Chicken Little, and not-so-for-children-more-like-teenagers Harry Potter – The Goblet of Fire (this post’s title is the translation from the movie, don’t blame me. My version: Hairy Putu & The Goblok of Paya).

With these movies invading our cinemas, and the children having nothing better to do, You can expect an army of them marching to the screens. There’s nothing wrong with them going to the movies, but them being children, may not know or unable to observe the manners of watching in cinemas. Well, if even the adults always fail to do so, how can we expect better from children? Maybe there’s some good and obedient child, but they can be counted by my left foot’s toe.

This is my suggestion to cinema owners.

• Cineplexes should reserve 1 or 2 cinema for children (under 7) and their gurdians. These cinemas should have easy access to the toilets and exits.
• Or, they should position children and their guardians near the aisle for easy exits to go to the loo, etc. imagine a child sitting in the middle of a row, needing to go to ‘peepee’ every 15 minutes. This is very applicable for cinemas that have limited cinema halls.
• the cinemas for children should be brighter than those for adults. Some children are scared of the dark. Having a child beside you screaming everytime the screen goes dark (and darkens the whole hall) can drive you nuts.
• guardians should teach cinema manners to their children and make sure the children imply what they learnt. The guardians should also imply the manners themselves. If not, the whole teaching thing is useless.

I was considering to write here what these children did to annoy me, but I consider not. Want to know why? Well, everything that they do, is also what the adults do, and sometimes adults do worse. So it seems unfair, especially considering children are just children. About the adults, well… that’s another post