There was a moment in time when going to the movies on a Sunday here required more than the motivation to actually leave your house. It required political change.
In 1917, before their namesake theater opened, the Whiteside brothers campaigned against a measure to outlaw Sunday movies. Their campaign advertisements urged residents to vote against the ban, promising to show only the best films on Sunday nights.
(Photo: Whiteside Theatre/The Corvallis Inquirer)
By 1920, it was put to a vote, and the vote to lift the ban on Sunday movie showings failed.
Luckily, the democratic process offered a solution. Residents could debate the matter, organize campaigns, and vote repeatedly until the city determined which days were appropriate for looking at a screen.
Fast forward to the present day, when we often spend the majority of our time looking at screens.
Before our feet even touch the floor, we’ve already read three alarming headlines (but none of the articles), watched a video about why we’re making coffee wrong, and learned that AI will now end our existence in six months (down from last week’s more reassuring prediction of two years).
Progress is a remarkable thing. We’ve come a long way, and so has Whiteside Theatre.
Whiteside opened in 1922, while the Sunday movie restrictions were still in place. In 1928, more than a decade after the brothers’ campaign against the ban, voters finally lifted it by roughly a 2-to-1 margin. The people had spoken.
Almost a 100 years later, and with elections right around the corner, we commemorate that whole movie business victory in a sophisticated way.
We open a streaming service. Spend 35 minutes reviewing films neither person wants to watch. Open another streaming service, discover the movie you vaguely remember wanting to watch. Then sign up for a third streaming service where you can watch it for free for 7 days… and then next Sunday you pay for it because you forget to cancel your trial.
It’s much easier than physically going to a movie, and the entire experience only costs the slow erosion of an evening.
Our predecessors, meanwhile, had to fight for access to Sunday entertainment that did not involve an algorithm suggesting seventeen documentaries about murder. Or cats. Or cats committing murder.
Thanks to the vote in 1928… Sunday movies are legal again. It won by a landslide. No, we haven’t picked one out yet to go see. We started watching some trailers, then reading reviews, then got sidetracked by headlines of actual landslides in wealthy neighborhoods.
Either way, the Sunday movie fight deserves a place in local history. It involved public votes, downtown businesses, and the enduring local tradition of taking a fairly straightforward activity and giving it several years of civic consideration.
Maybe things haven’t changed that much. Hmmm.
Perhaps visit a theater this Sunday. Sit down. Watch an entire movie on one single screen. People fought for this. They voted for this. It is expensive these days, but we probably only have six months left… at least that’s what my other screen told me this morning.
This article was written by Derek S., a contributor to The Corvallis Inquirer. Feel free to send us your stories or articles to publish at: editor@corvallisnow.com
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