Cellular phones have ruined everything. I am not talking about the miniaturized Internet, the cameras, text messaging, the people who persist in talking on them as loudly as humanly possible or the personalized ringtones we are forced to listen to on a daily basis, usually at the movies. Not that these are not problems, but when I say that cell phones have ruined everything, I am referring to their existence in film and television. The creation and widespread use of these phones now leave so many stories and scenarios that worked before the cellular revolution hopelessly dated.

My favorite example is Woody Allen’s Play It Again, Sam. The Woody Allen character is looking for love with Diane Keaton, who is married to Allen’s best friend, played by Tony Roberts, a businessman who must always be reachable for his clients and associates. But this movie was made in the early ’70s. He does not have an iPhone or a Blackberry, and even personal answering machines were still in their infancy. So throughout the movie, he is always calling someone, telling them not only which phone number he is currently at, but the next three or four numbers he will be at. This is a recurring gag in the film, and Tony Roberts’ hysterical, deadpan delivery makes sure that it never gets old.

Which brings me back to my original point: That bit of pre-cell phone business dates the movie. Sure, I find it funny because I can remember a time in my life, albeit brief, when cell phones were not a ubiquitous thing and there was indeed a chance you might not be able to get in touch with someone. The up-and-coming generation’s children, however, will only find it funny as something amusingly quaint that people a long time ago had to do. And that is if they find it funny at all; I think a more realistic scenario for the future, when who knows to what level communications technology will have progressed, is that folks will be left scratching their heads in utter amazement that people actually lived like that.

The final episode of “Seinfeld” aired in May of 1998. By this point, cell phones were in fairly wide use. Not quite everyone had one yet, but they were hardly a strange sight. In the beginning of this episode, Elaine has a friend whose father is in the hospital. Naturally, she wants to call her friend to check on her. No sooner does Elaine take the cell phone from her purse than does Jerry chastise her for a serious breach of phone call etiquette: the cell phone walk-and-talk. If we are talking about cell phones dating stories, this is another pretty good example.

Is there anyone today who does not talk about important things on their mobile phone while walking around in public? I am sure there are some who refrain, but many don’t even think twice about doing it. I am not lying when I say that while riding a train to New Jersey once, I listened to a woman relate, quite loudly, numerous details of her pregnancy to a friend on the other end of the line. I think that the stigma, if there ever really was one, of talking about serious personal issues on a cell phone is long gone. And “Seinfeld” is a far more recent example than Play It Again, Sam. If the commonplace nature of cell phones is noticeably dating something a little more than 10 years old, just imagine what similarly recent movies and television shows these devices are rendering outdated.

That is not to say that portable phones have not been integrated well into modern storytelling. Martin Scorsese’s The Departed makes fantastic use of them in its plot, as characters with multiple loyalties use more than one phone to keep in touch with different factions. National Treasure: Book of Secrets, for its significantly numerous flaws, has the villains do some very neat tricks involving cloned cell phones (don’t ask me how that works). And according to 2006’s Casino Royale, if you have a phone made by Sony, you can do everything from triggering a bomb to transmitting your vital signs across a continent.

But the fact remains that whenever we watch something older in which tension or suspense hinges on cut phone lines, missed calls or the total inability to reach someone by telephone, you might find yourself thinking, “Cell phones would render all of this moot.” The truth is that they do render it moot. Sure, there are times in films when cell phones may be lost, turned off or destroyed, but deep down we know it is not the same. Cellular phones may have allowed stories to move on to some extent, but it is a crying shame that in such a short time, so many good stories are being left behind, relegated to the status of cultural artifact, rather than being relished as still relevant.

Vince Balzano is a junior in the College. He can be reached at balzano@thehoya.com. Reel Deal appears every other Friday in The Guide.