I had asked my 10-year-old if he would like to do something special on his birthday the following day. Without hesitation, and with the eagerness of one looking forward to a day of unfolding bounty, he responded, “Yes, I want to go see ‘Return of the King’ (the third part of the Lord of the Rings trilogy) at the movies.”
With a sigh, I reminded him that we had no movie theaters here; like I had done for the umpteenth time in the past. “But why not, Baba? When I go to visit my sister in Alkhobar, she always takes me to the movies. Why not here in Jeddah?”
“Son, the movies you get to enjoy with your sister are in Bahrain. That is a different country altogether; one that you get to by crossing the causeway by car. They have different rules and customs there. Here, we just don’t have any cinemas. Now try to think of something else that you would like to do on your special day.”
After a few moments of feigned disinterest, he came up with some more impractical choices, but finally and at the end of a lengthy negotiation period, we settled on some objects of desire at the neighborhood toy store and a visit to the amusement center.
“Aah, the young. They just don’t understand,” I muttered as I settled onto the nearest armchair. But barely had I slumped in comfortably, dazed from my round of discussions with this precocious child, I sprung up wondering why we don’t have movie theaters here? A cool place to beat the heat, where one could escape to for a couple of hours?
We have bowling alleys, ice-skating rinks, and amusement parks. And we have restaurants, shopping malls and Internet cafes. We have go-cart tracks and state-of-the-art sports stadiums. We even have a visiting circus act each summer. But we just don’t have any movie theaters. Why not indeed?
We have video stores in just about every neighborhood, promoting the latest releases from the Americas, Europe, the Arab world and the East. For sale or rent, in DVD, VCD, VHS, Laser Disc formats, you name it and chances are you’ll find it somewhere here.
We have scores of satellite channels that beam a multitude of movie offerings from all corners of the world, and in all languages. We even have Pay Per View selections on a number of satellite subscriptions, allowing the discerning viewers to select the movie of their choice in the privacy of their homes. But yet, we do not have any cinema houses.
If and when I have fathomed the logic against allowing women to drive, perhaps then and only then will I begin to understand why we do not have any movie theaters here.
