I have always been a movie buff. I love pretty much any type of movie and am willing to see almost anything. There are also certain movies that I absolutely love and watch over and over again. When movies such as these come out in series, I absolutely HAVE TO go to the midnight premieres, which are actually a lot of fun. Pirates of the Caribbean is one such series. I went to the midnight premiere of the 2nd movie (Dead Man's Chest) with some friends and, being the dorks that we were, we actually dressed up as pirates.
I went all out with the full pirate costume--fake gold jewelry, bandana, vest...you get the picture. It was so much fun dressing up and going with my friends (who were also dressed up), but once we actually got to the theater, I started to realize that I kind of looked like an idiot, or at least like a fan that was a little too obsessed...I felt like we were a little overdressed. Most people dressed up to some extent (with bandanas and jewelry), but there was a smaller number of people dressed up as full pirates like we were. Even though everyone knew it was the night of the premiere and there were so many other people dressed up, as soon as I walked into the theater, I felt so self-conscious, as if everyone were staring at just me and not my friends or the countless other people who wore pirate gear. I even felt weird going to buy popcorn and talking to the people working, when they obviously knew why I was dressed up.
My feeling of conspicuousness in the sea of pirates (pun intended) demonstrates the Spotlight Effect (Gilovich, Medvec, & Savitsky, 2000). This is the idea that we believe that the social "spotlight" shines on us more than it actually does. That is, we think people notice us more than they actually do, especially when we feel awkward or self-conscious. Once I sat in the theater and got over the Spotlight Effect of my pirate costume, I managed to have a great time and enjoy the movie. I finally realized that I was not as noticeable as I thought because there were so many other pirate costumes that night. However, if I were the only one dressed up, that might have been a different story...
Gilovich, T., Medvec, V. H., & Savitsky, K. (2000). The spotlight effect in social judgment: An egocentric bias in estimates of the salience of one’s own actions and appearance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 211-222.
when I went to go see Harry Potter, I brought these plastic black Harry glasses because I was going to wear them...only I ended up not because I thought people would look at me funny haha. This in a theater where people were dressed up in robes with wants. Ah well.
ReplyDeleteAt least you had enough nerve to dress up in the first place... I remember when one of the earlier Harry Potter movies came out, I went to the midnight showing with a few of my friends. Two of them decided to dress up, but me and another girl chose not to (because I didn't want to stand out and look like everything you mentioned). I remember even though I was dressed normally and half of the other people were dressed up at the theater, I still felt self-conscious just by being with my friends who dressed up. It's crazy how self-centered our thoughts are!
ReplyDeleteI’m glad that you were able to get over the spotlight effect and enjoy the movie. I’m going to have to agree with you I’m a pretty big movie fan as well. I always go to midnight premieres and if it’s a movie I really like I even plan it out. For example, when Transformers 2 came out, I made sure I wasn’t working the morning shift at work the next day. Anyways, I think I’m too public self-conscious to dress up, plus I have lame friends and they wouldn’t dress up with me either. So I’d just like to give you mad props for taking the initiative to dress up. The dressed up people are the ones that make midnight premiers so much fun!
ReplyDeleteI am really bad at falling prey to The Spotlight Effect too... I have a really bad habit of tripping up stairs (not down, thankfully), because my attention is always diverted and I don't step high enough, etc. Anyway, every single time I do, the first thing I always do is look around to see if anyone saw my graceful trip, mainly because there is *always* like, six people around the staircase everytime I do it! Haha... It happens to the best of us though.
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