Unfiltered Story #311548

(I work in a relatively small theater that has limited screens. So we tend to only get most movies for about 3-4 weeks, unless it’s a huge blockbuster, in which case we might have it for up to two months. But we’ve never really kept anything longer than that because we just don’t have enough screens. It’s the first Friday of November, 2021 and I’m approached by an elderly African American man at the box office.)

Customer: “Do you have ‘Respect’? The Aretha Franklin movie?”

Me: “No, I’m sorry, we had it but stopped showing it at the end of September.”

Customer: (Immediately furious) “You [racist-slur-for-white-people]’s always take away the black movies so quickly! F*** you all!”

(He storms out. I’m approached by a co-worker who witnessed the conversation, who is also African American and also happens to be a friend of mine.)

Co-worker: (Shocked and slightly amused) “Yo… did he just call you a ‘[racist-slur-for-white-people]’?”

Me: (Chuckling) “Yup, because we aren’t showing ‘Respect’ anymore.”

Co-worker: “Uh… didn’t that movie come out in the middle of August?”

Me: “Yeah. And we had it for like a month-and-a-half, which is honestly longer than we have a lot of movies.”

Co-worker: (Laughing) “Why did he think we’d have it a full three months later? We didn’t even have ‘Avengers’ that long!”

Me: (Laughing) “No we didn’t.”

(While technically not appropriate, my co-worker has begun to jokingly greet me as “That [racist-slur-for-white-people] who takes away black movies!” on days we work together. Admittedly, we’re both fans of offensive humor, so we get a kick out of it.)