The theater was packed for THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG last night. 9:40pm on a Friday night in Hollywood, and a couple hundred 20-somethings had paid $15 a ticket to watch a 2D animated musical. And this was by no means an all-female audience. These were not girls still hoping to turn into princesses someday. In fact, I’ll be so bold as to claim that there was a solid 55% male majority in that theater.
We tiptoed in as the last trailer ended and took our seats in the second row. The lights dimmed all the way down as the Arclight logo lit up the screen. I leaned forward excitedly as the long swoop down over the Disney castle began, accompanied by the familiar melody (“When You Wish Upon A Star” from Pinocchio). Then, as the words “Walt Disney” looped in cursive across the bottom of the screen, this fantastic thing happened: the audience erupted. Not just applauding – whooping and shouting and whistling!
I got chills, and not for the first time that night. When I first arrived at the theater before the movie, the parking lot was predictably full. My first date with my ex-boyfriend started with a shared flask of bourbon on top of that parking structure, and I really did not want to park up there last night. But I didn’t have a choice. As I prowled the rows looking for a spot, a particularly epic song blasted from my radio: “Kings and Queens” by 30 Seconds to Mars. That song is shameless. I mean, it literally starts with a falcon’s cry. And it is wildly popular. I pulled into a parking spot just as the chorus of voices blasted the final refrain.
Now all of you know that the top floor of a parking garage has a special power over me, so when you add to that the residual grief of remembering my first date with my ex-boyfriend, then add the most epic song on the radio right now… Again, with the chills.
It’s tricky, though. It used to be that when a work of art gave me chills, I felt connected to the artist. The artist’s effort proved to me that someone else out there was striving and seeking the way that I was. That changed when I got my heart broken by a guy whose art I loved so much that I thought I could love him forever. Turns out that the artist doesn’t always live up to the art. A wall went up between me and the movies and music I love. I didn’t know how to trust them like I used to.
I’ve felt set adrift by my newfound mistrust of artists, but I think my Friday night at the Arclight has given me something new to hang onto. When a Top 40 radio station blasts an epic, earnest song, or a Disney 2D animated movie plays to a packed house, I find reassurance in the size of the audience. Audiences show up in droves for fearless, shameless, unapologetic work. I love what that says about people. That gives me hope.
