Copying The Movies

“Among individuals there is a wide imitation of motion picture patterns which are seriously incorporated into conduct and so pass out of the realm of make-believe.” When you are a child or adolescent, you observe and imitate your peers. Children learn from other children. For example, you watch your friends play baseball or handball. Then you learn how to play that game and copy it. Well the same concept holds true for the movies. Everybody knows that the movies show us different ways to dress and how to act.

You can imitate your favorite actor’s mannerisms and techniques. Many people enjoy going to the movies and they try to imitate their favorite actor or actress. They like and will often imitate the way they look and the way they talk. They will also imitate the way they act and their mannerisms. I think that it is quite normal for children and adults to go to the movies and to imitate the mannerisms and gestures of their favorite movie stars. All of us do it. Many times in the movies we observe and want to copy their smile, the way they walk, talk, stand or hold their head.

Love seems to be a huge theme in many of our movies today. We all have seen movies where love, passion, and affection are depicted. This is how many adolescents learn how to pursue and love a girl or boy. They unfortunately learn this from the movies. “As long as motion pictures present forms of conduct that arrest the attention of the perceiver, it is to be expected that there will be a great deal of copying for motion pictures.”

Movies and Conduct by Herbert Blumer, pgs. 1-6