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Is Hollywood Trying to Save Shopping?

In Ronnie Burkhardt’s world, in “Observe and Report,” the shopping mall is a bustling mecca of happy spenders toting bags filled with self-affirming purchases. It’s even more of an enjoyable destination for the suburbanites who flock to Paul Blart’s New Jersey workplace (until they are ordered to leave the mall, of course).

“Observe and Report,” the latest movie starring Seth “jumping the shark?” Rogen, has received mixed, at best, reviews all around.

I’m generally a fan of Seth Rogen, but I’m more intrigued by the quick succession of movies that take place at the mall – Rogen’s opening tonight and “Paul Blart: Mall Cop,” which opened mid-January.

In a recession that has all but decimated retail sales, is Hollywood trying to save shopping? By reminding viewers of the mall’s inviting place to congregate, could studio execs in LaLa Land – located itself in the land of malls – be making a bid to spur the U.S. economy?

Attendance at malls began flattening out in August and retail industry consensus is bleak, with few hopes for much good news in 2009. Retail sales for March were down in the double-digits for most chain retailers, with the worst figures reported by department stores, which typically anchor malls. Even Wal-Mart saw flagging sales (up just 1.4%). A report today showed that tenants are leaving malls in droves.

I’d like to make my own personal bid for the merits of the mall. Growing up in Cleveland in the 1970s, the mall was not just a place of consumerist possibility, but lent itself as a backdrop for the family to do something together, for friends and neighbors to mingle casually outside of their neighborhoods. Malls offer a non-religious (in any sense), perfect-for-the-recession place to convene: they’re free. At a mall, unlike a restaurant, no one is going to ask you to leave unless it’s closing time; unlike a library, you don’t have to keep the noise to a whisper (but shouting is still unacceptable anywhere); unlike a park, which I’m all in favor of, it is weather-agnostic.

Now that I have lived in New York City for many years, I routinely look down my nose at the mall, and several films over the years, not to mention Saturday Night Live skits, have reinforced this urban snobbery view.

But these recessionary times are not so dissimilar from that era in the late 1970s and early 1980s when the new mall opened in North Olmsted. Perhaps the mall could rise again. (I’m not holding my breath.)

Tags: movies