"They said the movie was sold out."

At screenings of movies which attract large African American audiences, many folks beleive that theatres will falsely announce the film to be sold out when in fact there are many seats available. The aim of this conspiracy is to cripple the money-earning potential of black films by undermining the box-office take. Spike Lee is rumored to say ticket fraud exists as well. The story there is that the box office agent will claim that the theatre owner ran out of tickets for the particular black film, and give the patron a ticket for another film but allow them to see the black film anyway. In this scenario, another film gets box office credit for a black film.

"They didn't like us wearing their clothes."

September, 1998 last update