Bring on the childfree showings. I’d start going to the cinema again.
The salon/dayspa where I get my hair done/spa services has a policy of no children unless they are having services performed and I love it. Most people won’t pay as much as they charge to get haircuts for their children, so it’s always peaceful and fairly quiet.
There are plenty of places that cater to children and families and I think that’s fantastic. I also like places that cater to those of us who prefer the company of other adults.
Besides the whole agesim aspect, I wouldn’t want to go to a theater that banned based solely on age, because they’d be more likely to falsely think they had solved the problem of disturbances, and not bother to do anything about the other (more prevalent in my experience) people with bad behavior.
My local cinema has one screen that bars under 18s, serves wine and the seats are more spaced out and generally swankier. You pay a premium to get in though.
I offered anecdotal evidence, it was rejected as lacking rigor. I offer scientific evidence, it was discounted as being too theoretical. Is there any research out there stricking a happy medium between these two? What evidence would be satisfactory?
I was given a lot of liberty as a child - partly because of who my parent were, partly because I earned it. So there were no hardships to base it on. What I did base it on was the behaviour of my friends and strangers my age. But I except your premise.
True, but sometimes all you need is a good kick in the teeth. Having adult only showings might send the message to teens that they need to grow up. They will be insurmountable as long as they think they are in the right.
As for the water supply - want to know what’s in it? Dust, mostly - there is a drought going on. Maybe that answers your question?
It is a part of them to act like kids - that is what adolescence is all about. If they want the rights of an adult they can prove to the world they can handle it. I do feel for the mature teens unfairly barred because of their unroudy classmates, and hopefully they can exert some of the famous teenage peer pressure on them.
Thank you for accepting my views. I guess this might be the part where we shake hands and agree to disagree, as we are near the point where further debate would be unproductive. I feel my views are understood now. If you feel that way, the we are done.
It was a good debate, though. I enjoyed it, for better or worse.
Heh, I didn’t think of that. Yes, that could be disasterous. Hopefully the staff wouldn’t be that stupid, otherwise there goes my business too. And judging by this thread and the number of anti-ageists out there, they would need it.
Times Square AMC. Multiple instances of guys down in the front yelling up several rows, playing on brightly lit cell phones, talking back to the screen, etc.
You said that minors “are biologically incapable of sitting through a 2 hour movie without mucking about”. The cites you provided show that there are biological factors which might possibly make it more difficult for them, but there’s a world of difference between having to try a little harder and being utterly incapable.
If you want to show that people under 18 are, with few exceptions, incapable of keeping their mouths shut for two hours, I guess the best evidence would be a study of minors who are asked to watch a movie in silence, showing that the overwhelming majority of them really can’t do it. There’s no need to look for biological causes for a phenomenon that hasn’t even been shown to exist yet.
Don’t you think that could be accomplished by banning people who are disruptive, regardless of age, and letting everyone else stay? The ageist policy sends the message that youth isn’t tolerated; kicking people out for misbehaving sends the message that misbehavior isn’t tolerated.
Most of them already are proving that. You want to punish all minors for the actions of a few, and then you expect “peer pressure” to resolve the problem, as if all minors know each other and can pressure each other to conform. Punishing the entire group for the actions of a few might work in a small community - a classroom or boot camp. But a group of millions of unrelated people, distributed across the country, linked only by the fact that they were born within a few years of each other?
Again, I have to wonder whether you’d promote this type of “solution” if we were talking about any other group of people. Punish all women, all Catholics, or all black people for the actions of a few and hope that peer pressure will sort it out? To me, that seems counterproductive as well as unconscionable.
It’s strange: if i happen to go during the evening from 1700 to night, there are a lot more people and there is always disruption from all age groups.
If it’s a matinée: less people in the room, but i notice a lot more teenagers. Yet it’s like a cone of silence.
It’s rare that i go to the movies, nowadays. I’m unlucky, i get the rooms that stink and floors that stick.
I pepper my speech with hyberbole sometimes. Sorry, but i honestly did not mean incapable. What I meant was, as you say, that it is harder for them. If it is harder for them, then there is a genuine difference. If there is a genuine difference, there are grounds for discrimination based on those differences.
Any such study would be bullshit. It is the great problem with psychology - people act differently when they know they are being observed, so a study like this would be inconclusive. Which is why the links I offered tackle the issue from a less direct angle.
How else are you going to prove the phenomenon exists? Without identifying potential causes, it is just anecdotal evidence, which you dismiss as unscientific.
That would be the better policy. But that doesn’t happen. Too few ushers, trying to identify trouble makers in a dark cinema, that would take the length of the movie in many cases. Besides, physically ejecting people who have already paid is extremely bad for business, not to mention highly disruptive. That would probably be worse for repeat business than tolerating the trouble makers.
Most teens act with maturity? Most, keeping in mind this group includes 12 year olds and 15 year olds, not just 16-18 year olds? Really? Care to back up this observation, like you demanded of me?
No I don’t expect peer pressure to resolve the problem. I don’t really give a fuck whether the mature ones can convert the rotten eggs, but if I were in that position (and I didn’t like it) that would be my avenue of approach. If you still don’t like my use of the phrase “peer pressure” then assume you have made your point and move on.
And punishment? Get off your high horse for a moment. We are talking about certain times, hell, maybe even certain screens within the one complex, where children can not attend. The “punishment of millions” is certainly colourful language.
And if this takes off in one cinema in a neighbourhood known for its roudy teens, then you know what? It is a small community, and the kids will know each other. I’m not saying every cinema should do this, but they should have that option.
Adolescents have short attention spans. Adolescents are constantly testing the boundaries, seeing what they can get away with. Adolescents are impulsive and lack social inhibition. Based on these things, backed up by science, I can say this with confidence: Ageism is not the same as racism. Ageism is not the same as sexism. Find me a study which even remotely suggests that women throw popcorn when they are bored because their friends will think it’s funny, then we will talk.
By the way, if the adolescents are enjoying the movie, then they will be no worse than adults. They might even be better, who knows. But put yourself in a dark room with some bored teens and their friends, and chances are you will regret it.
Is this a joke, or an argument? If it’s the former, it’s pretty good. Perhaps we could tell everyone entering the cinema they will be psychologically profiled while they are in there - we would have the makings of a model cinema audience. It would work. If it’s the latter, then colour me underwhelmed by the logic. Even if it weren’t made irrelevant in the face of my previous post.
Seriously? Skin color, which I cannot change, is the same as age, which will change naturally?
I am…surprised. I should be offended, but I can’t bring myself to care. Bring on child-free stuff! I wish there were child-free apartment complexes for people under the age of 65 or whatever. Thanks, Bill.
Actually many theaters do state that they have cameras watching the audience. I don’t know if it affects general misbehavior but it probably cuts down on use of cameras.
Look either you think teens are capable of behaving themselves or you don’t. You even implied it was biological. If they are inherently incapable, then being watched isn’t going to make a difference, and neither is saner policies that target misbehavior from all groups.
If you think it’s just a statistically greater chance because of various factors thing, then you have to target every other demographic with some sort of statistically greater chance of being influenced by some random factor that makes them more likely to create a disturbance. How about cell phone owners? We could just ban all cell phone owners because statistically they are more likely to create a disturbance than non cell phone owners. Or black people? Or college students? Etc.
And let’s be honest. Any actual ban on kids will not be because the theater owner actually thought about what kind of policies would be fair or even effective. It won’t be based on actual observation of what’s happening in the theater. If that was going on, the would be stopping the disturbances as they happen. Instead, it will be a cheap stunt to attract customers based on some fear they might not even have had before the theater turned youth into the boogieman. And the stunt will only work because it’s considered as societally acceptable to have broad bigotry against youth the same way it used to be acceptable to have broad bigotry against other groups.
Have you even considered the shameful fact that public drinking fountains are still segregated? It’s a disgrace that in this day and age, you still can’t drink from a fountain if you’re under four tall.
No, there aren’t. Consider the millions of people who have obvious “genuine differences” from others because they’re disabled, for example. We don’t take that as a license to discriminate freely against them; in fact, we do the opposite, going out of our way to accommodate their differences, because they’re still capable of overcoming those limitations.
I told you how, but you just dismissed it as “bullshit”.
You’re wrong, though. You don’t need to identify potential causes in order to move past anecdotal evidence. All you need to do is study objectively: for example, don’t only count the minors who you see talking loudly while ignoring the ones who aren’t.
If you think a clinical environment would distort the results – which I find unlikely, since everyone is being “observed” in a theater anyway – that’s not a dealbreaker. All you’d need to do is go to the theater with a clipboard, count how many minors are present, and then count how many of them are disruptive.
I haven’t studied it scientifically, so all I can offer is anecdotal evidence.
Sorry, but punishment is exactly what you were talking about. “Sometimes all you need is a good kick in the teeth”, remember? You’re advocating punishing this entire group (millions of people) in the hope that the ones who are unfairly punished will exert pressure on the ones who deserve it. I’m sorry your preferred policy sounds so bad when it’s repeated back to you, but that’s hardly my fault.
After you, sir. You’ve still got nothing but anecdotes to show that this phenomenon actually occurs.
Again, the psychological studies you’ve shown are good for no more than forming a hypothesis. “Based on what we know about attention spans,” you might say, “I would expect 90% of teenagers to throw popcorn when they’re bored.” But you can’t just stop there, without bothering to test whether they actually do throw popcorn when they’re bored; that isn’t science, it’s speculation.
You have to test whether your hypothesis is backed up by real-world evidence, and that means making an honest attempt to determine what proportion of teenagers do, in fact, cause a disruption in the theater.
Of course, but you want to ban them anyway, just in case, right?
You speak as though I’ve never been to a theater with teenagers in it before. I assure you, I have, and it didn’t change my mind.
Well, Michael Jackson managed to change his skin color…
But seriously, yes, they’re the same in that they’re both out of a person’s control. You can’t change your birthday. You’ll always be the same age on a given date, no matter what you do, no matter how mature or intelligent or capable you are, no matter how you behave. If you’re banned from a theater solely because you were born in the wrong year, it’s no better than being banned solely because your ancestors came from the wrong country.
Sure, you can wait for it to change naturally, but there’s nothing fair about a policy that makes some people wait years to do things that others are allowed to do immediately, simply because of the circumstances of their birth.
If a business wants to ban a certain racial group, but only for the next five years, is that acceptable because the victims of that policy can just wait it out? No, because in the meantime, they’re still being discriminated against.
“Bring on black-free stuff!”, says the racist. “I wish there were black-free apartment complexes for white people or whatever.” But that’s totally different, because that policy affects people who are worthy of our consideration, right?
I’ve gone to a local theater that has nighttime no-minors showings of some of their film selection, barring films aimed at younger or teen viewers (those are pretty much never no-minors regardless of showtime), and all of the films require at least one beverage or food purchase. This theater has at-seat food and drink ordering, including beer and wine. So the extra ‘fee’ on the already more expensive ticket* and the close proximity of regular theaters tends to discourage viewers who aren’t really there to see the film. Plus all kids under 14 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian, and anyone disruptive (including adults) might be asked to leave. Since there are waiters in the theater, there is a lot of oversight of the theater.
I think any theater that actually would pay for - and back up with manager decisions - ushers to monitor it would be successful. The last time I recall seeing an usher, prior to going to this specialty theater, was way back when Henry & June was released theatrically. My now-husband and I went to see it at a college-located theater, and an usher made regular trips in to be sure no one was getting it on too heavily in the audience.
They also have high-end sound systems and comfortable reclining chairs, so the ticket price is higher than typical theaters.