There’s a weird sort of movie-theater authoritarianism rising up these
days. Some of it has to do with patrolling for video cameras, some of
it has to do with being seen to respond to supposed terrorist threats,
some of it with the longstanding impulse to suppress food and snacks from
outside.

A theater in my neighborhood has taken recently to sequestering backpacks. I
politely resist every time, offering anyone who cares to the opportunity to
inspect my backpack for WMD, etc. So far, I’ve always been able to get my backpack in (and, I promise, I don’t put it in a neighboring seat, but keep it on the floor and out of the way). It’s a small thing, I know, but I feel
that I must express resistance to this silliness.

I note that not all theaters in the DC area engage in this little obsession, so it’s not as if there were a universal consensus that taking folks’ backpacks away from them is required. And for those of you who suggest that I just avoid taking backpacks to the theater, let me point out three things: First, I’m a bicycle commuter, so carrying a backpack is pretty much a necessity if I’m going on a shopping trip that may well begin or end up with a matinee. Second, I notice that women’s purses and bags, many of which are perfectly capable of concealing bombs, etc., aren’t sequestered at the door. (There’d be an open revolt if the theater tried it!) Third, the nearby restaurants, where I frequently dine, don’t engage in such weirdness, even though presumably a middle-aged would-be terrorist like me could take out as many folks at the Lebanese Taverna or Austin Grill as I could at the Majestic 20.

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