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OK, so people talk at the movies a lot - but WHY?
A number of times on this blog, myself and my readers have bemoaned just how rude movie audiences seem to be these days. The talking is incessant, the cell phones are annoying, the kids are loud, etc., etc.
But now comes the $100,000 question: WHY are people this way?
It seems to me that truly rude audiences are a relatively recent phenomenon. Sure, there have always been and always will be bad audience members, but they seem especially prevalent in recent years. Again, why?
I have a theory.
My observation is that rude movie audiences have gotten especially distracting in the last decade. That coincides with two things: the age of DVD and the age of cell phones.
The DVD effect is two-fold. First, it made buying movies more affordable, making people more inclined to stay at home, even moreso than in the VCR age. Second, it made living rooms more like movie theaters, with their high-quality picture and sound. Thus, the lines between the living room and the movie theater became blurred, and people became more inclined to behave the same way in both places.
The more immediate cause is, I think, the rise of the cell phone. Simply put, it gives people an opportunity to be rude that they didn’t have a decade ago. And because the cell phone has become the tool so many of us can’t dispense with, a whole host of irresponsible behaviors has grown along with it, including talking while driving, and talking while in movie theaters.
Or maybe there’s another reason …
Let me play the cynical cuss here. Is it just possible that some people, particularly ones of a younger generation, are SO into themselves that they don’t care what other people think of them?
Or are audiences even that bad? Do you run into bad behavior every time you go to the theater? Or is the bad behavior memorable enough to make it stand out? Maybe it’s because I see so many movies, but I’ve become quite good at tuning people out because I sit close to the screen, making it much easier to pay attention to the movie.
Now let me really go out on a limb: Could it be that while we’d all like to THINK that WE’RE never guilty of anything, and THEY’RE to blame, haven’t we ALL been guilty of the very behaviors we decry at one time or another? I know I’ve talked loud a few times or carelessly left my phone on once or twice.
And here’s maybe the most important question of all. Now that we’ve established that audiences are worse than ever, what do we DO about it? Seems to me that everyone complains a lot, but rarely do I see people actually doing anything about it.
Thoughts?
Disclaimer: I do not have $100,000 to dole out to commenters who come up with really good answers.
Permalink | Comments (9) | Post your comment | Categories: Moviegoing
Comments
By SRCputt
July 24, 2008 6:50 AM | Link to this
This isn’t a new problem. One of the most memorable experiences for me with noise was at the end of the movie Reds (1981). During the movie, there were many “witnesses”, people who had actually lived through the times with their commentary on the events in the movie. As the end credits ran, the witnesses were shown with more comments, but most of the audience stood up, started talking, and drowned out the movie. Then, my father screamed “QUIET” at the top of his lungs. And the rest of the audience… sat down. And listened. And experienced the rest of the movie.By JMC
July 23, 2008 4:30 PM | Link to this
When my daughters watch a movie with their friends they talk the whole time, commenting on the movie and just gabbing. When they start talking while watching a movie at home, I shush them and tell them that is not allowed at our house. When they go to a theatre, they know it is not allowed to talk when others not in their group can be disturbed. Kids act rudly because their parents don’t know any better.By Lea
July 23, 2008 4:15 PM | Link to this
I have a cell phone, and I turn it off - not just in the movies, but for dinner with my husband and kids AT HOME, when at a concert, at the doctor’s office… It’s not that hard to do. As for talking, if you can’t remember your comment long enough to mention it after the movie, was it really that important? My kids get taken out of the theater if they talk after the lights go down. That’s the signal, and if they really want to see the movie… If we have to leave before the first hour is over, the ticket price comes out of their chores. (Bathroom breaks are allowed as long as they’re quiet when they leave and return!)By Brother Phil
July 23, 2008 2:06 PM | Link to this
I would prefer not to be judgemental about other people’s behavior, but I consider this to be a problem of acting maturely. There are young people who are extremely mature in their behavior and there are some older folks who act self-centered and immature. Part of a healthy proces of maturation is the ability to be considerate of others while learning to resist our tendencies to only think about ourselves. In general, younger people, because of their lack of social experience, are naturally more likely to act immature. I can concur with Rob that perhaps part of the problem is indeed for each of us, our relative ability to selectively focus on the movie while tuning out the people in the audience so they fall beneath our threshold of perception. I also agree with Eric that our technology and consequent behavior in utilizing it is also a factor in how we behave in the theatre. I see why Eric blames is on DVD’s and the advent of home theatre systems blurs our sense of behaviors between what is appropriate at home verse what is appropriate in public. As far as cellphones go, I believe we are still in the process of learning what is considered proper behavior, as this represents a case of behaving in public in the manner in which we could only get away with in the privacy of our homes and in phonebooths a few years ago (have your ever stopped to wonder why they put doors on the older walk-in styles of phonebooths?). From my relatively ancient perspective, I believe part of the problems goes back to the early 1950’s when television and air conditioning were first available in our homes. Before that we sat on our front porches and interacted with our neighbors in much more of an intimate manner than we do today socially isolated in our houses. Our family lives, in those days, were far more public and our behavior tended to be censored not only by our parents, but by our neighbors as well. We tended to learn at an earlier age what was socially acceptable.By Allie D.
July 23, 2008 12:06 PM | Link to this
I think Rob is simply lucky. The problem is not overblown where I live, but I have noticed that rude moviegoers usually like to come out at night, hence the soaring price of movie tickets for the already pricey evening shows not being the only thing keeping me out of theaters after 5pm if I can help it. I have found that nearly every time I have encountered a rude audience, it was at night, when the audience was comprised mostly of young and/or drunk people. The most civilized time to go see a movie? Around Saturday or Sunday at noon, when said kids or drunks are still in bed. I think that overall this behavior can be attributed to a steady degradation of general respect amongst human beings. Look at the majority of the movies made for young people coming out anymore. They show so much contempt for their own characters, it’s not surprising that the people who go watch them are not much different, whether they are reflecting the values of the film or the film is reflecting them. Furthermore, people are so self-absorbed that they either do not care about the effect their actions have on others or more likely they are simply just oblivious. I saw a 10:20 of The Dark Knight and there was a kid there simply listening to music on his iPhone without any earbuds, and he had it turned up as loud as it would go. He even had it on as the previews were starting, and I asked him to turn it off. He looked at me like I was inconveniencing him. I think people are afraid to speak up because they don’t want to cause a scene in public, but in my experience, the rude people are usually good about shutting up if you tell them to, which tells me they simply don’t realize how rude they are being and they then feel embarrassed. Also, they paid for their ticket too and don’t want to be kicked out of the movie. If people got more pro-active about reporting the idiots, the problem would go away. It takes two seconds to get up, go out to the lobby and tell someone that there is a jerk in your theater. I’d rather sacrifice a tiny block of viewing time than have my whole experience ruined by people who can’t shut up for a couple hours.By Bdub
July 23, 2008 11:53 AM | Link to this
Before the Dark Knight started at Showcase, the ushers got the crowds attention and promised if they saw a cell phone on or heard talking during the movie… you would be escorted out. This was very effective as half the theater finally took out their cell phones and turned them off. The ushers/bouncers weren’t rude, but respectful and professional…very well done! The sold out showing was fantastic, though it may have been that the movie was so intense … nobody had the chance to be distracting.By Cali
July 23, 2008 11:15 AM | Link to this
Great article! Just recently when I saw the Dark Knight, some people were yelling/goofing around in the very front row, and the guy in front of us yelled “shut up!” They were quite for a few moments, and then they started being loud again. Then the guy leaned forward and said “Can you please shut the f* up, we’re trying to watch the movie!” Whoa!! I couldn’t believe it! The people were quite, and everyone cheered for the guy who told them to be quite. I found it interesting that everyone cheered for the guy who yelled for them to be quite. It seems the majority of audiences would prefer a quite theater, and that the loud people are more of the minority in the theater.By Tony
July 23, 2008 10:57 AM | Link to this
I think every time Zack and I go to the movies, someone acts like a jackass. When we see ‘Mamma Mia!’ there were multiple groups of older women talking THE ENTIRE MOVIE! We would have shushed them, but we could never tell who was talking since there were so many offenders. When loud musical numbers would begin, these women would just talk louder so they could hear each other over the movie. I don’t think at-home-viewing caused this, I just think they too old to be let out of the house. I took my mother to see ‘Sex and the City’ and she talked almost the entire time. I kept shushing her, but she wouldn’t stop. Then again, my mother is very self-centered, so maybe that had something to do with. I do think that you have a good theory when it comes to the younger generation thinking they are too important to be bothered with rules. When ‘Dark Knight’ ended, there were hundreds of cell phones being turned on and pressed to ears. The movie started at 10pm and ended at like 1am. Who is calling/texting these people at that time of night!? I just hate going to the movies now.By Rob
July 23, 2008 10:04 AM | Link to this
Honestly, I think it’s all overblown. I go to dozens of movies a year in the theater and I think I could count on one hand the number of times I was actually distracted by somebody else’s actions. I wonder if being distracted by somebody else’s actions isn’t really just a reflection of the moviegoer not being properly engrossed by the film.