Since I am going to see The Dark Knight today —
(brief pause for moment of total fangirl squee)
I would love to have a secret science fiction ray gun that I can zap people with in the movie audience who are talking, texting, taking phone calls (!), and otherwise behaving badly. This ray gun would instantly tattoo on their foreheads — in neon — well…. let me tell you a story.
When I was in grammar school, the teachers’ favorite disciplinary tool for low-level offenses was assigning misbehaving students 10 sets of multiplication tables (“multies,” where a single set was “0x0=0” all the way through “9×9=81”), or 50 lines, which meant writing out an assigned sentence that many times in really good penmanship. Multies were easy — most of the kids in my class would get ahead on sets of multies when we were bored and keep them in reserve. But you could never get ahead on lines because the teachers made them up on the spot.
The one I remember most came from Mrs. Atkins, my sixth grade teacher, who was really annoyed one day and sent the entire class home to write:
I have been thoughtless, selfish and rude: therefore I must write this tedious sentence 50 times.
I would have the secret science fiction ray gun tattoo a variant of this: I have been thoughtless, selfish and rude, and need to learn that the world is not my living room.
Or, as I like to say, don’t be an asshole. An extreme response to someone disturbing a really good movie? I think not.
Exactly! Ugh, it was just at The Dark Knight that I had one of the worst movie-going experiences of my life — behind us were two guys who felt the need to make MST3K-type comments about every scene, and two rows in front of us were three kids (early teens) with elaborate cell phones via which they were texting the entire world and making their row look like a miniature Las Vegas. I was able to tell the guys behind us to be quiet (and was immensely polite with my firm “Could you PLEASE be quiet”), but there was nothing I could do about the kids without causing a major ruckus. I almost wish I had, though, because the experience of watching the movie was nearly ruined. One moment of total distraction to tell the kids to put their damn phones away versus the slow burn of constant little distractions… Ahh well, next time. Because there will, alas, be a next time.
That is exactly why I love the opening scene of Tampopo in the movie theater when our lovable Yakuza threatens to kill the man who had been rattling his bag of curry-flavor potato chips, if the noise continues. And he warns the rest of the theatre, no watch alarms, either! (This is circa 1988)
Ditto, Ditto, Ditto! Are you at the movie to see and be seen or to watch the ******* movie! If the former, go roller skating. If the latter, shut up!
Same goes for the theatre: late arrivals who just happen to have seats in the middle of the row and step all over you; those who fan themselves with whatever in hand; who open a box of sweets and rummage for like eternity; who have coughing fits at the most sensitive/interesting point of the play; who whisper loudly to each other; who reek of perfume/aftershave/cigarettes and make my sinisitus flare up; who check their mobiles every two seconds; who fall asleep and snore and/or fall sideways on me……
Ah, the humanity…. we’re so good at pissing each other off, aren’t we? (grin).
I’m reminded of a time I was on the other side of this equation. I was an acting major in college, and one night about eight of us went to a performance of A Servant to Two Masters, which is an 18th-century Italian commedia that I didn’t really expect to speak to me — until I saw how hysterically it had been staged. It was brilliant, really funny, and we all just about killed ourselves laughing at the antics (and really excellent comedic performances) of our peers onstage.
I guess we enjoyed ourselves a little too much. An usher kicked us out. Since the usher was One Of Our Own (a theatre major), he was able to tell us that an older patron had complained that there were students on drugs in the back of the theatre…
I wish. Drugs would have made it even funnier.
I have actually stopped going to the theater to watch movies because of what you and others have commented on.
Why should I pay to sit in what has become a community living room, when I can just save the money and rent or buy the DVD later.
I remember as a kid going to see movies when there were still ushers with flashlights walking the theater “shushing” anyone who was talking during the movie. That all seemed to change around the early 70’s, and it only got worse then the multiplexes became popular.
Cell phones, MST3K wanna-bees, and people who feel that have the right to put their feet up by your head, are my worst complaints.
And when you politely ask them to stop their behavior, you get an attitude.
At least in my living room, I can control the volume, pause the movie, turn down the ringer on the phone, and put my feet up without offending anyone else.
Oh, yes, I remember the usher days as well. And the popcorn was always gorgeous, and the theatres themselves were lovely spaces with marvelous decorative plasterwork and painted ceilings.
Sigh.
Of course, I also remember the stone age of airline travel, when everyone in economy got steak and champagne for dinner, and there was actual room between the rows.
I don’t know. Maybe there’s a correlation between population density and the need to take up more public space in the world. Maybe we’re all just elbowing each other out of the way for breathing room.
Or maybe we’re just raising a generation or two of privileged my-baby-does-no-wrong kids. Get outta my way, I’m an American!
In the gym I belong to, last week a couple of women were blatantly disregarding the rules for using the equipment, which interfered with at least ten other people’s workouts. When asked to please obey the process that they had agreed to in their contracts, the women said (in the huffy tones of the righteous), We paid our money! As if that was the only requirement to treat the gym like…well, like their living room.
It’s nice to look back on the “good-ole days” isn’t it? I definitely agree with this comment of yours:
“Or maybe weΓ’ΒΒre just raising a generation or two of privileged my-baby-does-no-wrong kids.”
A while back while talking with a much younger co-worker, I commented about the lack of civility in our culture, and they replied that they “did get what all this civility stuff was all about”
Given that I am turning 50 in a few months, I can now relate to what my parents and other “old people” were saying about my generation when I was a “kid” and I just have to laugh at how things in life tend to go full circle, especially now I am the old fart.
That’s something to think about when you see an older person laughing to themselves π
Oh, dear. It’s hard to imagine not “getting” civility. Especially when it takes so much less energy than throwing a tantrum. Maybe we should just start telling the kids that civil people get laid more, or something. π You think that would get their attention?
Would it get their attention. You bet!
I hope though that they are “civil” about safe sex practices π
I’m planning to get their attention by just smiling at them and when they as why I am smiling, I’ll say “You’ll get it in 25 year or so kiddy” π
you are so cute but that is a long story!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!