Climate Change, Popcorn, and the Movies
So, on this past week’s episode of This Week in Media, I mentioned that I was going to blog about popcorn. I haven’t forgotten. I fact it has been buzzing on the edge of my attention until just this moment. I can’t take it no more…
Climate change and petroleum prices have increased the demand for corn. Why’s that? Well, petroleum has started to become inhibitively expensive, and other fuel options are looking better and better each passing minute. Lucky for us, corn can be used to create ethanol, a non-petroleum based fuel source, which is being used to power an offshoot of the automobile family tree.
So, the government started subsidizing farmers to plant corn for ethanol as opposed to corn for other purposes. Therfore, farmers are planting more and more bio-fuel corn because farmers plant whatever they can get subsidies for these days, and now we are looking at price increases for all other un-subsidized corn products (hence the tortilla famine in Mexico (ok, I might be exaggerating… a little)). Admittedly, the price increases are only a few cents per dollar, but the fact that the trickle-down effect has now reached the popcorn in movie theaters is mind-boggling.
The question I have, however, is why do the movie theaters think that they can exponentially increase the price of popcorn considering the actual increase per unit is relatively small?
I dunno. I’ve been sneaking snacks into movies for years. Movie snacks have always been a consumer rip-off, while a theater cash-cow. It just seems like its another opportunity for movie theaters to steal money from their patrons. Meanwhile, the whole ethanol thing in general is losing credibility.
Its not our fault… blame global warming.
Filed under Esoterica | Comments (7)7 Responses to “Climate Change, Popcorn, and the Movies”
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Aloha!
I definitely hear ya on the price of popcorn at movie theaters. It seems so absurd that something so cheap and easy to make would cost so much. However, there is what would appear to be a totally reasonable explanation for the cost. It is often cited that theaters charge a premium for popcorn in order to offset the cost of tickets to see a movie. The idea is, that for those without a lot of expendable cash, they can still see the movie and at a reduced rate, while those with the extra money purchase popcorn and other concessions to offset the reduction in the cost of seeing the movie itself.
I can’t prove this for sure and I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a bit of price gorging going on, but at the core of it, it seems to be an attempt to allow more people to see the movie itself. I’d say the true issue is not the $5 bag of popcorn, but the ten million dollar movie stars.
Just my two cents and at least that comes free 🙂
-Dan
Movie theaters around the world are the same. They have a captive audience so charge what they like. But the problem is that snack revenue is a major part of cinemas’ income, and here in the UK at least, partly subsidises the cost of the ticket.
As far as biofuels go, isn’t one of the main issues that we’re not actually growing any *more* of anything – predictions I’ve read say that increased biofuel usage will simply lead to worldwide food shortages.
I want to say 2 things right now, first off all, the Wired issue a few months back talked a lot about Ethanol, and from what I understand it’s still problematic to refine it in an efficient way, or has that changed? Of course, even if it hasn’t it will soon enough.
The second thing is that once (I don’t know if this was a stroke of genius or stupidity) some friends of mine and myself actually snuck a couple 2L bottles of coke and plastic cups into a Wallace and Gromit movie, so I understand where you’re coming from.
[…] bits of news resulting from the higher price of field corn. Kirsten at The Bird’s Brain notes that popcorn has gotten a little more expensive, and Jeremy at the Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog […]
Unfortunately, according to the current issue of Time magazine, converting corn to ethanol has a net increase on greenhouse gases compared to petroleum.
So we’re not even getting the benefit of a healthier planet when we pay more for our popcorn. 🙁
Yeah, I know theater food is expensive but that’s what they have to do. Nearly all the revenue from tickets goes directly to the studio. Used to be the revenue share was split on a sliding scale. At first the theater got most of the ticket sales but the longer a film ran, the split slid more towards the theater. And movies stayed longer. Now they are out in a wink and popcorn keeps the theater open. But sneaking snacks in is OK by me.
Actually, the subsidy goes to the ethanol producers not the farmers. Farmers have long been paid a subsidy on corn, in addition to many other crops, as a means of keeping food prices low. The increased demand for corn created by growth in the ethanol industry has resulted in rapidly rising corn prices. For the farmer higher corn prices means we no longer qualify for government subsidies on corn and, for the first time in many decades, are being paid fair market value for our grain crops.
Here is a brief explanation: http://snurl.com/243tf [www_prospect_org]