I was just sitting down to a late viewing of “Scary Movie 4” Saturday when I was confronted by something I had absolutely no desire to see.

As I sat among a young crowd that looked on from its popcorn-strewn seats, there appeared on the screen an advertisement to sober any cheerful moviegoer: an Army recruitment commercial.

Thank you, Unites States Military. Just when we have bought tickets for a silly comedy to forget about troubling issues such as the current war, you have made sure to remind us.

Avoiding military recruitment is a tricky business for the late high school to college-age demographic these days. With the demand for active troops skyrocketing, recruiters have been targeting schools aggressively and promising benefits like tuition provisions and hefty GI bills. Now, when we go to relax and see a movie, not only are we constantly reminded that “There’s Only One Jeep” and “Pepsi: it’s the Cola,” but the pressure to join the service is also present yet again.

Although military recruiters have quotas to fill, the organization shouldn’t be shoving flashy “help wanted” propaganda under the noses of an optimism-seeking public.

We must not forget that movies have become the cultural staple they are because of the need to maintain that very optimism. According to the award-winning film history and reference site filmsite.org, “The world was headed toward rearmament and warfare in the early to mid-1940s, and the movie industry, like every other aspect of life, responded to the national war effort by making movies.”

The site also goes on to explain that the tone of films tended to vary with the political mood of the times, such as the “escapist tone” films took on during the Depression years.

Obviously there is a strong cry for that kind of escapism today: As the war progresses and its surrounding controversy dominates the press, box office sales have been kindest to superheroes and comic book characters, and films like “X-Men 2” and “Superman” continue to secure a place in our cinemas.

America goes to the movies to either cheer up or find something new to absorb its imagination. Reminding its youth that they really should be off fighting a war undermines this cause at the very least.

Some might say that military recruitment ads should continue to be smack dab in the middle of a movie theater for no other reason than to target our nation’s apathy at its source; to throw in a “reality check” to the heavy influence of the entertainment industry. I say a world where we care a great deal about entertainment and movies is better than a world where we find no relief from political pressure. If America’s youth really wants to join the U.S. Military, our government has created more than plenty of opportunities to do so, and the movie theater shouldn’t be one of them.