“First it was the Back to the Future production and now this” – modern cinema fans send warning over uneventful cinema trip at Birmingham’s Star City.
Cinema goers, already disappointed by the cancellation of their tickets for the interactive Secret Cinema showing of Back to the Future, have expressed anger over a trip this weekend to the controversial Vue Cinema at Birmingham’s Star City. They’d expected to have a visceral experience of muslim-on-white racism which would have added to the overall impact of How to Train Your Dragon 2 but instead were disgusted to find that absolutely nothing of any note happened.
Annabel, 28, a publicist, told us “I bought an off peak day return from London to Birmingham so that we could experience the racist cinema that hates non-Muslims for ourselves.” She’d planned the trip as a treat for her boyfriend – Darren, who is a champion barista and novelist – to make up for the fact that their Secret Cinema dreams were dashed last month. “When we got there we soon found out that the cinema was largely automated – from the ticket machine through to refreshments, there was no human interaction. We didn’t even have our tickets checked. Darren thinks he might have seen a member of staff in the toilets, but it could just have been a guy wearing black jeans and a black polo shirt. For fashion. Perhaps that’s how they dress up here?” Darren, 29, added “I couldn’t tell that it was a racist cinema at all because there was no one to speak to. I even think the projection booth is just a PC running some digital files on a scheduled loop. I feel conned.”
Brand expert Dale Ingram said “this is a strange move for Birmingham. Visitors are now invested in the Trojan Horse narrative, and for a cinema to not deliver on that shows a lack of coherency in brand message.”
The couple did see a lot of asian teenagers on lunch time dates at Star City’s Nando’s “I think it might be one of the halal ones I heard about” Annabel said “but to be honest there were white people there, black people too and I think some of the asian ones were sikhs. It’s hard to tell. Which ones are Indian?”
The disappointed couple then headed to Birmingham city centre “we heard there’s a Selfridges at the Bullring, and a Jamie’s Italy near the train station. It really is amazing how far the town has come on. It’s nearly as good as Manchester, isn’t it?” Darren said.
