A couple weeks ago I was at the theatres with my friend Sharon watching the new JJK movie. I walked toward the concession stand to buy a bag of popcorn and she asked:

“Why do you always buy popcorn? It doesn't even taste good”

“Well I like it, it’s yummy”

“Yeah, but you could get nachos or a hot dog”

That’s when I realized I’ve literally never watched a movie without a bag of popcorn before. Maybe this is just the result of lifestyle marketing (the idea that you need popcorn to have a good movie experience) but I started to wonder if there was something deeper than that.

This semester, I’m taking a course called Philosophy of Food. The course asks you to slow down ordinary pleasures and ask:

• What exactly am I enjoying?

• Where does that enjoyment come from?

• What practices, values, and systems make this pleasure possible?

It’s the first week of class so I haven’t actually gotten into the course content yet, but here’s my attempt at answering these questions through my popcorn dilemma.

1. Pleasure is more than taste

Popcorn during movies is a perfect example of this. The pleasure isn’t just the buttery flavour; it’s the texture, the sound, the timing, the context. Both in movies about movie-going and in real life, popcorn frames the theatre experience. It gives your body something to do, creating comfort and habit.

In philosophical terms, eating here isn’t just snacking, but an aesthetic practice. Thinking about such ordinary things this way makes you realize how food structures experiences you thought were about something else. I thought I loved movies. Maybe I love the ritual of watching movies with popcorn.

2. Reflective vs unreflective consumption

For the past 19 years, I was completely unreflective about this habit. But once I started thinking about it, a question came up:

"Do I like watching movies or do I like the ritual of eating popcorn while watching?"

This shift from unreflective to reflective consumption is about separating habit from value. You can eat popcorn without a movie. You can watch a short film without popcorn. Reflection lets you notice when pleasure is socially conditioned, and when your choices are driven by routine rather than intention.

That said, even after realizing this, I’m still going to keep eating popcorn at the movies because I still believe its yummy. Reflection doesn’t eliminate pleasure; it gives you autonomy over it.

3. Food is cultural and social

Popcorn is cheap, shareable, and culturally coded as “movie food” through decades of media depicting the perfect theatre experience. So my enjoyment isn’t neutral. It’s shaped by cinema culture and shared expectations about what watching a movie is supposed to feel like.

I'd say the big takeaway here isn’t that popcorn is bad, or that habits are wrong. It’s that we should be more deliberate about what we consume and more honest about what we enjoy.

Hopefully everyone reading this still enjoys popcorn with their movies… the concession stands must stay alive and well