Movie "Too Cerebral" for Local Viewers ?

The Internet has many resources to offer the chess enthusiast. Though my special interest is correspondence chess, I retain an interest in most areas of chess. One of my resources is the Connecticut Chess Magazine edited by Rob Roy. It arrives in my electronic mailbox about once a month and contains chess news primarily from the Connecticut area. Interested parties can check http://RobRoy8.com. The following caught my eye, a tournament report which I'll just quote in part:

"This was the last chess tournament to be held in Waterbury. ... Our program never received any help from the Waterbury school system. They fail to encourage youth to learn this game that fosters intelligence. The already-established players in Waterbury were too timid to face the strong players that travel here to compete. When the movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer" was released a few years back, I waited for it to show in a Waterbury theatre. When it never came I called the theatre to ask why. They said the movie was "too cerebral" for the Waterbury audience."

I've noticed an attitude that I don't like. As with the cartoon character Homer Simpson, many are careful not to attempt anything that might be considered difficult. This "dumbing down of America" is a disturbing trend, perhaps one explanation for the lower testing scores by our students. We chess players both benefit and suffer based on the public perception of chess as a highly intellectual and difficult game. On the one hand, people immediately make positive assumptions about our superior intelligence when they learn that we play chess. On the other hand, people are scared away from our beautiful game, assuming it is only for intellectuals and Mensa members.

Perhaps our superior intelligence, indicated by the mastery of chess, is a misconception. For instance, when I heard about the above-mentioned movie, my enormous intellect told me that the movie had something to do with Bobby Fischer! Silly me.

The Campbell Report - March/April 1999 (Article the above was quoted from)

The Campbell Report’s Web Page