The Movie Theater

Posted by Jim Connolly on 2016 in Insights

by Meagan Brant and Cooper Cox

Meagan chose to create a group of surrealist essays based off of images that were discovered by the Data Subcommittee during the study. She performed this task by doing a “mock surrealist association” with the informant day diary data from February 12th to March 5th.

35 images were recorded and three were selected for this surrealist essay group by a random number generator. She discovered, ironically, that the three final images revealed typically repressed Freudian concepts of the unconscious: sex, death and violence.

After selecting these images, she studied them and started associating words that came to my mind with the image. Once she gathered a rather exhaustive list, the most interesting ideas were selected. Thus, the surrealist essays were formed.

“The Cemetery” was based off of Informant 3’s diary on February 12th concerning a story about his father passing away. “The Movie Theatre” was based off of Informant 10’s diary on March 5th concerning a ‘Date Day’ with the informant’s spouse. Finally, “The Penis Clip” was based off of Informant 9’s diary on February 23rd concerning a hair clip that was found during work hours and how it got passed around the workplace.

“The Movie Theater” was illustrated by Cooper Cox.


comic“Coworkers were moaning around at work all week about the 32 hour work week.  For me…..I work 50s almost every non holiday week, so I looked at it as a week of relaxation AND since I knew ahead of time I was off Friday, I talked wifey into taking the day off.  That allowed us to have ‘DATE DAY.’

What is ‘date day’ you ask?  Well, it consisted of the wife waking up to find a vase full of flowers on the kitchen table with a card in front of it.  Once she got the children off to school and I tried to sleep a little longer (since I would be on a short nap)…..I got up and got ready.  Then we headed out for Lunch at a restaurant.  Afterwards we went over to the movie theater to watch Deadpool.’

Now I will take a break on the description to point out the only weird thing about the movie…..this was during school hours but some teenage looking boy with a backpack came in and sat at the end of a row.  I have always been aware of my surroundings….but since I was carrying my defense with me….I was not too nervous.  Since you asked in this weeks questions if I would walk alone in Muncie & in Indianapolis…..I thought Id point out I was more concerned for a little while in the theater than I would have been walking around at night time.  Nothing happened but the way I was raised….I was aware of the situation not appearing normal.”