The Blackberry Effect

This morning I remembered something odd from the Suburban Girl screening last night. There's a theme about Blackberries running through the movie. The communications device, not the fruit. At the risk of making it sound deeper than it is, I would say that there are some key points in the script where the device symbolizes both the large age gap between Alec Baldwin's character and the young women in his life AND his attempts to bridge that gap.

This significant device seemed to trigger something in the audience, because when the lights came up, people on all sides couldn't even wait to get out of their seats before they fired up their own blackberries and started texting. This reminded me of when I saw a midnight screening Dazed and Confused, many years ago, and nearly everyone in the audience lit up a cigarette as soon as they exited the theater door. At 2am, the streets were completely deserted except for a group of about a hundred people standing outside a theater entrance, smoking.