Jeremy Rowley
Jrowley1@uwyo.edu
When I was about 15 years old, I watched “The Sixth Sense” for the first time. I was in a hotel room for a hockey trip and the movie just happened to start playing on one of the channels. At this point, the film had been out for over a decade, but when the film’s famous Shyamalan plot-twist finally came, my young mind was sufficiently blown.
That is right, ladies and gentlemen, I was able to go 11 years without the ending to “The Sixth Sense” being spoiled for me. Having watched the movie again since then, I can say without a doubt that the experience of watching the film is completely different when you already know the ending. This is why, in spite of the movie’s constantly increasing age, I would be furious if I saw somebody spoil the ending of “The Sixth Sense” for somebody else. Doing so would effectively be robbing the victim of a unique and potentially momentous experience.
Now bear with me for a second here. I am not completely without a sense for proportion.
I recognize there are things that are objectively more important than movies and television shows. That being said, these forms of superfluous entertainment matter tremendously to me. Just like it would be easy to make fun of a person for spending hundreds of dollars on a pair of sneakers or “wasting” hours on putting together a bug collection, discrediting the value I attach to experiencing a movie or show the ‘right’ way would take next to no amount of effort. Yet, just as with these other examples, it would not be fair to do so.
Everybody has things that they care more about. Perhaps film is not one of those things for you. I can respect that. But, part of our society’s collective coexistence relies entirely on the ability for us to respect each other’s wishes. If you simply cannot comprehend why spoilers matter to people like me, that is not a problem. That being said, you still have a responsibility for the sake of good nature to respect my wishes for things not to be spoiled.
That is right, I said it. If a person does not know something about a film or show, regardless of how old it is, it is your responsibility not to spoil it… To a certain extent. Accidents happen and mistakes are made. People will always spoil things for you at some point. I understand that. All I ask for is a little more situational awareness when discussing a plot.
I am not telling anybody that they have to stand on pins and needles whenever they want to talk about their favorite show. I am not even really asking people to go out of their way in their manner of speech. Simply prefacing a discussion with a sentence like “Hey, have you seen [insert show title here]” is usually enough to alert a person to the fact that they need to stop you from delving into too much detail. That is, unless you work in the -ahem- Branding Iron office
