No, this isn’t my BlogHer12 recap blog post. I’m absolutely procrastinating on that. Instead, I give you this.
Preparing for air travel includes loading my iPad2 (aka. iPadasaurus) with movies to entertain myself on the plane. I hadn’t changed anything on my iPad since my last flights (SF work trip and last year’s East Coast trip). The iPadasaurus contained Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, Friends with Benefits, the Louie CK comedy special, and Zombieland. The only one that was rated PG-13 was Mission Impossible, which I find hard to believe. The other two movies are rated R.
source: http://www.imdb.com/media/rm729854720/tt1229238
Oh Sawyer, you’re totally going to eat it here.
On both flights, I had an aisle seat. On my way to New York, I watched Mission Impossible. Despite the TomKat divorce news, I liked this movie. Simon Pegg makes everything better. This flight was a red-eye and as expected, many people slept on the plane. I looked around my area, and they were all adults. This movie contains Tom Cruise and Paula Patton were duking it out with their enemies. There’s plenty of blood and bruising and a kick to a Frenchie’s gut to make her fall a gazillion stories to her death.
source: http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3583609088/tt1156398
On my way home, I watched a little bit of Zombieland which I had seen many times. I realized there were kids (younger than 17) on this plane, and while they were NOT sitting right next to me, I felt kind of guilty watching Jesse Eisenberg and Woody Harrelson kill off zombies. So I stopped and watched an edited version of The Avengers which was on Jetblue’s movie queue. (Still good! I love Joss Whedon!) The Avengers ended and I started watching Friends With Benefits, which I’d never seen, so I didn’t know if there were any naked or sex scenes. About 20 minutes into the movie, I started to get that awareness again that maybe I shouldn’t be watching this, in case Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake do it on my iPad screen.
It took me this long, yes, but I did realize at that point that just because I could watch any R-Rated movie on the plane didn’t mean I should. What if some kid watched over my shoulder or diagonally across my aisle? What if this kid watched Ned’s head get cut off on Game of Thrones on my iPad?? What if this kid snuck a peek and saw some zombie’s head get blown off or Dexter killing another (deserving) victim?
I totally get that it’s not my responsibility to watch some kid’s curious eyes on the plane. But I do think that as an adult, it’s my responsibility to be aware of my surroundings, my seatmates on the plane, and what may not be appropriate to watch on a flight.
Your thoughts? Do you think about whether the kids sitting around you on a plane can see what you’re seeing on your iPad/laptop? Do you NOT watch certain movies or shows on your iPad/laptop when you’re flying? Or do you load up Dexter, True Blood, and The Wire, and go watch whatever you want?
I had the same thought years ago when I was flying back east for a work trip. I had brought my SATC dvds (that I had just bought) to watch on my iBook. I became very aware of scenes that I thought could be inappropriate and I turned it off and started reading. I think I would feel less bad with an iPad if I could arrange it so people couldn’t easily see the screen.
chris Reply:
August 15th, 2012 at 7:14 am
@Jen, I was watching on my iPad and was still wary of the screen. Oh the iBook… RIP!
I’ve been on both sides of this. I had the same experience Jen had with SATC. After watching so many abridged eps on E!, you forget what the old HBO versions are like. I hit the stop button immediately, since I was sharing a row of three seats with a mother and her 10-year-old.
I wasn’t so lucky when the uncomfortable seatmate was me, though. A couple sat down on a flight home from Vegas, and the man blithely thumbed through Playboy the entire flight while his red-faced wife apologized to everyone in the first three rows.
chris Reply:
August 14th, 2012 at 10:18 pm
@Vickie Bates, Holy.cow. Really? What a stand-up guy. I feel bad for his wife!