Recliner Seats — Ergonomic Heaven or Hell?
So I did something at the cinema last night I’d never done before — I saw a movie in an auditorium with recliner seats! This was down to a convenience of screening times as opposed to any thirst for supine comfort. Besides, why not live a little and treat myself to some extra pleasure?
And pleasure was certainly what was being advertised with the lobby (despite coming to this cinema every week for years I had no idea this hallowed area existed) containing a mirrored bar, luxurious sofas and brightly coloured pillars framing the entrance to the recliner auditorium, an auditorium situated on the cinema’s top floor where the privileged could stretch out at this rarefied, Olympian height whilst, down below, mere mortals had to suffer the agony, and the indignity, of watching their movies sitting upright.
The only problem was the buttons to my recliner seat weren’t functioning so whilst everybody around me was letting their heads ease back and their legs rise up to the sound of a muffled, electrical hum my chair was completely motionless and inert. I felt like the only person at an orgy not getting laid.
My friend, taking pity on me, briefly let me sit in their seat during the trailers so I could at least get a quick hit of this particular furniture high. I lay back, let my body relax and… what the hell is this?! My chin was scrunched down into my chest, my stomach felt crushed, my vertebrae were protesting and my feet were sticking up so I had to peer over my toes to see the screen.
Now, as well as being an ex-comedy writer/producer I’m also a fully qualified Alexander Technique teacher and, hence, a rabid advocate of mind/body unity (consciousness is a physical phenomena, not an abstract one) so the thought of watching a movie having relinquished any and all of my internal support mechanisms wasn’t just anathema to the movie going experience but an affront to the vital relationship between the human spine and the centre of the planet (gravity doesn’t pull us down — it lifts us up!).
I looked around me at the surrounding ocean of horizontal humanity voluntary giving up every single ounce of their internal animation systems. “What the hell are these poor bastards doing to their backs?!” I wondered. It was then a terrifying realisation hit me — this wasn’t a gladden realm of luxury… it was a torture chamber!
Also, who wants to watch a film lying down? A movie should make you perk up, lean forward, be sucked into it, not knock you out like an anaesthetic. Cinema should be a stimulant, not a narcotic. Want to know how I watch movies at home? At a desk! That’s right; I watch my movies sitting at a desk on a swivel chair. This keeps my back upright, my poise dynamic and whenever the film gets super-exciting I can swivel about in exhilaration which gives me a corresponding physical release to the action on screen. This is one of the reasons why my movie nights are so god-damn legendary.
I returned to my broken, immovable chair, and watched the movie with my spine erect, the last surviving tree in a decimated forest. When the movie finished and the lights came up I looked around me and was greeted with a horrifying sight: immobile bodies were scattered everywhere, legs up in the air, heads hanging back, stomachs and chests covered in the debris of various snacks. It was like a scene from the Somme or a Wilfred Owen poem only instead of using mustard gas the enemy had used lethal nachos and popcorn instead.
Recliner seats are an abomination. They reduce any and all physical involvement with what you’re seeing to absolute zero. They promote passivity and disembodiment which diminishes engagement. They are symbols of the fallacy of the mind/body split and annihilators of the kinaesthetic. They are the disciples of Descartes. They must be destroyed.
