I was walking down the street in Manhattan the other day and saw a movie marquee advertising Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom. I thought, “Dang, I wish I were going to be in town long enough to go see that.”

And then: “Who am I kidding? I hate Wes Anderson movies.”

I really do. I keep trying to like them, and failing. Anything with the great Bill Murray in it has some claim on my affection, but Wes Anderson movies are a slog. The thing is, I feel that I’m supposed to like them, all the intellectual tweeness. They are made for people like me. Wes Anderson is the Tyler Perry of the SWPLs. No, really, he is; from the Stuff White People Like site:

White people love Wes Anderson movies more than they love their kids. If a white guy takes a white girl to a Wes Anderson movie on their first date, and neither of them have seen it, they will immediately commence a relationship that is reflected in songs by Ryan Adams and Bright Eyes.

Wes Anderson movies have this way of being sort of funny and a little clever, so white people in the audience will laugh like crazy. Also, if they don’t get the joke and other white people start laughing, they’ll all join in. It’s pretty much the case that if one dude with glasses laughs, the entire theater will be in stitches within 15 seconds.

Though I have seen a few Wes Anderson movies and have never liked them, I still feel the impulse to go see each new Wes Anderson movie. Mysterium tremendum. I am a traitor to my race and a traitor to my class. Oh well.