Went to a movie. At the end, I’m watching the credits roll, and got to enjoy a new drama unfold in the seats.
Guy from my row goes past muttering to his date. I’m not clear what about, but then he strolls back in to go to the ladies in the row behind him and curse them out for talking during the movie, dropping some F-bombs on the two ladies and their two pre-teen looking girls.
The ladies start yelling back at him for cursing in front of their children.
I sink into my seat to stay out of it all. Guy leaves, ladies grumble a bit. I leave.
Don’t know. I’d have to hear how loud the women and kids had been, and whether he’d asked them to keep it down before the movie was over and they’d declined.
I went to a play recently, and before the play started (there was no curtain) they lowered a movie screen and started playing some “Coming Attractions” video. (Never seen this before, but that’s a different story.) The two women beside me were conversing. A woman in front of them turned around and said “Could you hold it down, we are trying to hear this”. After that the two women behind started verbally tormenting the two women in front. Things like:
[ul]
[li]“Oh I can’t laugh, it will be two loud and I’ll get scolded again!”[/li]
[li]“Am I talking too loud? Don’t want you to miss the commercials? Huh?”[/li]
[li]“I know you are listening to me. I know you are going to turn around and glare at me.”[/li][/ul]
Just constantly, over and over. The women in front finally did turn around and glare at them, which led to gleeful taunts of: “I win! I made you turn around!”
If the dude hadn’t dropped f-bombs though, it would of been the just the ladies and chitlins’ being jerks. I once had a couple sit directly behind me in the middle of an empty theatre, who put up his feet on the back of my seat. I looked back and gave him a “you’ve got to be kidding me look”. I got a what ? look as a response, then I moved over about ten seats.
When I went to the first Harry Potter movie with my now ex-wife, we were the only people in the theater when a woman walks in and tries to sit directly in front of me, asking me to move my feet (which were on top of the seat). I said no and we exchanged words about how she could sit anywhere in the theater but she wasn’t going to sit directly in front of the only other people in the place.
Two weeks ago I went to see The Hobbit and it happens again. I’m the only person in the place, I have my feet up on the seat, woman walks in and decides to sit exactly there. I smiled and shook my head ‘no’ and she moved over 3 seats.
WTF is it with people?
In the OP case, they’re both jerks. But we Humans have this amazing capacity to convince ourselves that our anger at other people’s behavior excuses any bad behavior on our part.
The most effective silencer I ever used was in a movie maybe twenty years ago, before it got quite so common to yammer all through a film. Two youngish teens were yukking it up about three rows ahead of us and some polite shhhs and quiets had reverse effect. In a quiet moment of the movie, I channeled Ron Perlman-is-back-from-Hell and growled, “Shut. Up.” in a voice about three octaves below my normal range.
So I’m all alone in a theater, and my feet are up on the seat in front of me, and someone walks in and demands to sit exactly there and I am the jerk because I happened to have my feet on the chair before they even entered the room?
Oh my goodness, I was in a very similar situation.
I was attending a musical recently. I went with my mother, back when she was part of our family.
Since this musical was a show put on by kids, there were many kids in the audience who were there to watch their friends/siblings. Everyone was told to turn off their electronics before the show. One woman, sitting a few rows away from my mother and I, was a bit late in turning off the screen on her phone. So my mother walked all the way over to the woman and told her “turn it off!” My mother then went back to where I was sitting, and loudly whispered “Fucking bitch!” (referring to the woman with the phone.)
I was shocked that my mother had whispered that to me so loudly in front of so many children in the audience. I was mad at my mother for a long time after that, and I couldn’t enjoy the play as much as I might’ve liked to.
I feel like being a so-and-so and jumping in on this.
Feet on seats is a big pet peeve of mine, too. Especially in my climate at this time of year, when there’s snow/dirt/water/mud everywhere outside, and it inevitably gets on everyone’s footwear.
Neither. Other people are a thing you have to deal with at the cinema, and some people enjoy talking about what’s going on during it. And since I don’t believe “swearing” is a thing, I have no problem with it.
My thoughts exactly. Not enough context to be sure about the ladies, but what information we have points to jerks all around.
I’d vote more for the man if I had to pick because there’s a chance the women were talking at reasonable levels but it’s clearly established he was cursing the women out.
Because clearly all language is equally polite and respectful and no language is ever inappropriate to a given context. That’s why the word “fuck” shows up in so many formal business presentations and White House press conferences. I could see not caring whether children use or are exposed to certain language (though it’s still a decision for a parent rather than for a random stranger) but not believing that “‘swearing’ is a thing” is absurd.
I don’t believe “swear words” are a category of words, because that would require them to have a property that all words don’t. Hence, I don’t believe swearing is a thing. Hence, I don’t have a problem with the guy in the OP’s scenario, except maybe a little for going up to some total strangers to complain at them.
I don’t have a problem with any of the common complaints I hear about going to the movies. The lack of personal space in a full cinema freaks me out a bit, but that’s the cinema’s layout, not rudeness on anyone’s part.
Oh, and I get a bit worried when someone passes down my row with spillables (got a tiny bit of mustard on an unwashable coat once, paranoid ever since), but that’s about it.
All the stuff I hear people complaining about at the cinema is either part of the experience or not a big deal for me.
EDIT: I mean, if talking pisses you off, does the crunching of popcorn? Laughter?
Some words are less polite (or more likely to offend) than others. Those that are the the least polite or most likely to cause offense have that property in common and are given the names like “swear word”, “profanity” or even just “really impolite words”. Again, claiming they don’t exist is kind of silly.
Laughing is mostly an involentary reaction to the stimulous of humor. Movies that are likely to cause laughter are generally layed out in a way that nothing important comes immediately after something likely to cause laughter so that the laughter doesn’t drown out the important things. This is within the control of the filmmakers and part of the movie going experience. A person having a conversation with his friend is not under the control of or planned for by the filmmakers and is thus disruptive to the experience.
As for eating popcorn, it doesn’t tend to be as loud enough to be noticable except in very quiet scenes. At those times, it can be annoying but they do tend to be briefer than conversations so it’s far less of an issue. Also, popcorn tends to be finished before a movie gets to the plot twists and climaxes and such that take place in the second and third act whereas these same elements tend to spark more conversation, those being more annoying.