John Swansburg at Slate recently conducted a fascinating poll of Netflix users, asking them which rental had sat on their coffee table the longest without getting watched. The answer was unanimous and very revealing: Hotel Rwanda. I couldn’t help but chuckle – I borrowed a copy of the film a few years ago from a friend, fully intending to watch it, but alas, it simply sat on top of my DVD player for months, a daily reminder of the gap between my cinematic aspirations and the reality of my actual viewing preferences. At first I made excuses – “I’ll watch it this weekend” “I’m not in the mood today” “Just one more episode of Batman: The Animated Series and then I’ll put it on” etc – but eventually I gave up the ghost and returned it. A slight extrapolation perhaps, but you would be hard pressed to find a better everyday illustration of the discrepancy between what we feel we should do and what we actually want to do, the extent to which the real falls short of the ideal. Hotel Rwanda may be a beautiful parable of sacrifice and love in the midst of global tragedy, but it functions for people as the opposite, another sad-but-true example of how we tirelessly turn Grace into Law. You don’t need to go to church to find a measuring stick, those little red envelopes are everywhere you look, ht JS:
“Hotel Rwanda is currently the 10th most popular Netflix rental among the service’s 8.4 million subscribers. Which simply means that a lot of people have been mailed a copy—to judge by your e-mails, only a fraction of them ever get around to watching it. Netflix spokesman Steve Swasey told me the company doesn’t keep track of which movies its subscribers hold onto the longest but said he wouldn’t be surprised if Hotel Rwanda was the one. He confessed he’s been sitting on a copy since September 2006.
Hotel Rwanda is that rare movie about a devastating subject that nevertheless feels like something you really do need to see. The same goes for Schindler’s List, which finished a close second among Slate readers. Both appeal to the lofty sense of ourselves that comes to the fore when we’re managing our queues. Neither feels especially appealing after a long day at the office.
So, how can you avoid developing a long-standing beef with a Netflix rental? You could simply eschew renting anything long, foreign, or potentially depressing, but the prospect of dumbing down your queue is itself depressing.
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8 responses to “Must-See Movies, Stalled Netflix Queues and the Hotel Rwanda Effect”
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A fascinating truth. I actually ended up canceling my subscription to Netflix due to the pressure I felt to keep up with all of the right movies. I would get them in the mail, and I would never watch them. It made me realize that I am much more of a spontaneous movie watcher. I like to fly by the seat of my pants. I never know what I am going to be in when I want to watch something, and Netflix certainly put law into an otherwise wonderfully free and fun past-time of movie watching.
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I got Hotel Rwanda from Netflix, kept it for a month and then sent it back, unwatched. I also ordered “Rwanda: Living Forgiveness” which I did watch, because it’s only 27 mins long. A great illustration!
So, a good rule of thumb might be to hit all the depressing movies when they come out in theaters, just to get it over with, and save the fun ones for rentals. That dark bombastic stuff works better on the big screen anyway.
It’s not just depressing movies…
for me, the movies that go unwatched the longest are the movies I add post-Oscar buzz. I think I had “there will be blood” for 3 weeks before I sent it back unwatched. The same was true for “No country for old men.”
I really can’t say that Netflix actually put the “law” on anyone about movies that one has “ordered” from them. Netflix is a very “grace” oriented organziation. You order the movie, you get it, and then you return it whether or not you ordered it from them. There is no judgment and no condemnation. Now, the “law” comes into the situation by one’s own law, or even the Moral Law (i.e., we should watch serious movies, etc.), because one feels obligated to watch serious movies. It’s not Netflix’s problem that we have an issue with serious movies, it’s our own problem and the basic influence of the Law. We have condemnation for not watching a serious movie because we are fallen not because of some “law” we think Netflix has put on us. I think we can take it too far; we need to be able to decipher where guilt is coming from: us or them. this time, it’s us and our broken heart and the moral law.
If netflix brings too much quilt for someone, don’t watch it; but don’t blame netflix for the guilt.
Lauren,
You are right. We sinners have used Netflix as yet another tool for judgment and law. It is like the gun sitting on a shelf…it’s harmless until someone picks it up and uses it for something terrible.
I don’t think this post intends to blame it on Netflix as much as to point out yet another example of how we take things and turn them into laws to which we can never fulfill nor want to fulfill.
Regardless, the “grace” Netflix offered didn’t seem to work out for me. I still don’t like to plan out my movie watching, and it is inevitable that I will pick movies that I think I “should” see if I have to plan ahead. Kind of scary that I even am helpless in my Netflix use. I need to saved in every area of my existence.