Video Store Angst

The video store, though a relatively new arrival in the land of shops and other places you inevitably go to exercise your wallet, has already been ingrained - fully accepted - into our daily lives, our routines. "I did some gardening for a while," is more likely to raise a questioning eyebrow than the admission that lacking anything else to do, you went over to the video store to rent a movie.

The video store has its comfortable place. There is nothing odd at all about going there. On a given night, this will be folk's only venture out of the house, and they'll still manage to avoid all kinds of human contact, their noses buried in the video wall. It seems as though, magically, as if orchestrated by some corporate invisible choreographers, a whole range of behaviors has sprouted up in relation to the video store, behaviors that are as accepted as the lameness of half of the products sitting on its shelves.

One thing I find especially annoying is the library-quality silence that is the norm. Where the hell did this start? (I admit it's odd to bitch about silence in public places, as opposed to loud, inappropriate public display which is more of an obvious problem. Just stick with it.) Is there some specific reason why video stores are as quiet as funeral viewings, while darkened movie theaters, where silence is supposed to be the rule, are often abuzz with conversation, tweeting phones and beepers, kids too young to know where the hell they are let alone how to act, screaming and using your chair and head to climb on, and couples loudly humping behind you? I guess people figure others need to concentrate while reading the synopsis on the back cover of Spice World, so as not to gloss over crucial plot details without knowledge of which he/she would not rent the video, therefore continuing on in an inestimably diminished life. I think movies are exciting, and it's easier to persuade someone you're with to rent something that you yourself want to see if you can relate "cool" scenes by mimicking the sounds of explosions and gore (an activity definitely socially unacceptable in the porn room, but that's a whole other story). In the video store you really shouldn't make noise, though, due to some unwritten rule.

Similar to this silence is another etiquette problem: the way people, when walking between you and the wall of videos you're looking at, will offer the apology, "excuse me," sometimes making a hunching-down motion or even moving quickly, momentarily, as if their course was going to block the projection of some movie emanating from somewhere behind you. Like you're concentrating to discern some six-digit catalog number so you can find Porky's II between one numbers and three. Don't worry, if somehow your passing by breaks my meditation on the cleavage-filled box cover of Bikini Summer so that I become totally lost, I'll get the assistance of someone working here to help me find it, again.

Don't let all this "courteousness" lull you, though. There is plenty of screw-the-other-guy behavior about. The "manners" are just a smokescreen thinly masking a hostility toward all others in the store of competitors who exist only to be beaten in the rush to get the best videos. There are the greedy ones of us who'll grab a video we might want to see, so that no one can snatch it while we hunt around for something better ("Screw those other people! I, actually, if nothing I'd rather see happens to be in tonight, and if I don't change my mind, might want to see this!"). Then there's the act of lurking around near the video drop-off area so you can check out what people are bringing in before it even gets a chance to be put back on the shelf. The scavenger in me likes this behavior; like dumpster diving or something; like up snatching a thrift store bargain before someone else can get to it. Similar to this is video-stalking, where you follow employees around, their hands filled with stacks of returned videos, in the hope that you can snag a sought-after new release as soon as it is placed on the shelf. Even more sneaky/devious is the technique of "calling ahead" to reserve a video, thereby heading-off the poor fuckers who are already en route to the place.

The video store, like other businesses, makes a gesture towards helping to train obedient consumers, in this case with the little, "Please Rewind," sticker on the tape. I see that some of these have gotten bigger, inflated with more phony courtesy, reading, "Please Remember to Rewind!" Hey, "Please Remember to Toss this Piece of Hollywood Dog Shit in the Trash When Done!" I propose more helpful stickers, like attaching one to the Shannon Tweed films reading, "Please Remember to Masturbate."

One totally aggravating video store practice is that of kidnapping a video from its nice alphabetical position in the category where it belongs and sticking it in some other arbitrary area of the store, usually next to newer movies that are either similar to it subject-wise or contain the same actors. This is done, I guess, because if the store assumes people are stupid enough to take the "Please Rewind" sticker seriously, then they're definitely too stupid to seek out movies they might enjoy all by themselves. A suggestion sign usually is next to the out-of-place movies, "If you like this (new movie)...then you might like (out-of-place movie)..." Kind of like, "As a service for those of you who never watch TV, read magazines or newspapers, or talk to humans other..." I've been tempted to attach drawings to the end of each arrow: a man being attacked by one pit bull next to, "If you like this...," and a man having his legs and groin mauled by four pit bulls next to, "then you might like this..."

If you still can't find the movie you've been searching for for the last twenty minutes, you can proceed to another pointless waste-of-shelf-space category, the "Employee Picks" section. Does any one really give a shit what Kiersten, Noam and Taylor like to watch in their spare time? This kid has worked at the video store for two weeks and all of a sudden he's Roger-fuckin-Ebert. The age alone of half the people usually working there makes their suggestions already irrelevant.

I have this radical idea about these misplaced videos. Why don't they put the movies back, in ALPHABETICAL-FUCKING-ORDER so the customers can find them easier? I guess if you were a little paranoid you could make a case that this strewing of the tapes around the store is done to get you to stay there longer, to invest more time in searching and therefore become more likely to not leave without renting something. Otherwise, you've just wasted all that valuable time. The "Employee Picks" section is probably a gesture toward the employees, making them feel like they have some control over the workplace, giving them some freedom, and maybe helping them to not think about the size of their paychecks for a while.

No discussion of public behavior is complete without including that most ubiquitous and annoying tool, the cell phone. The video store is a good place to see the cell-phone-as-leash usage. Sure, yuppie man got to leave Libby at home with the kids for a while, but now he's standing there ball-less reading the back cover of a video into a small black piece of plastic and looking at down that last copy of The English Patient, praying that someone will come and snatch it so he can honestly say "It's not here, honey." And yes, I'm too harsh. I do realize that if the wrong video was chosen, if it was something that one or both partners were not completely in the mood for or comfortable with, that it would be decreasing their quality of life and could even damage their relationship.

The video store, with its attendant behaviors, is a definite part of our culture, though it may take some sensational event - someone getting murdered in an argument over who grabbed a new release first, someone giving birth right there between rows of "Real-life" and "Action/Adventure" films ("Yes, I felt the labor pains, but I just couldn't let go of my copy of Beaches."), or some American getting buried in a coffin shaped like a giant video cassette box under a grave marker in the form of a drop-off slot - to cement it in the national consciousness. The fact that everything there is basically one price and inexpensive, and that there is something for every one, makes the video store a populist service. The intrusion of DVD, however, may bring with it class issues; renting a movie on DVD says "I'm on the cutting-edge of home entertainment technology; what's your deal?" The video store behaviors aren't something to be afraid of, and they are not going disappear. More likely, they will change in slight ways in response to changes in the business itself. Like the person who pilots a cart full of food into the "12 items or fewer" line just ahead of you, there's always going to be someone next to you bending or breaking the rules of video store etiquette. Best to relax as you pass through the door, and trust your instincts as you dive in to the Darwinian struggle for magnetic-tape entertainment thrills waiting on the walls of the video store.

Will von Ratblood, a phila-based guerilla satirist, is a veteran of several failed band projects and is the creator of [Rat Blood Soup], a number-one underground publication of satire and funny stuff.

Posted by Will in Philadelphia on 01/Feb/2000