# Who is the bigger jerk? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 10, 2013, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-bigger-jerk/646807 "2013-01-10T23:24:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2013, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-bigger-jerk/646807/61 "2013-01-11T19:43:39Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > 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? Basically, yes. Who the f\*ck do you think you are, putting your feet up on a theater seat?!? ---
**Author:** ![Ellen\_Cherry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellen_cherry/32/3600_2.png) [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2013, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-bigger-jerk/646807/62 "2013-01-11T20:23:52Z")
> [@Ambivalid](#): > > Ok, you’ve removed any shadow of doubt as to your trollery. You have nothing genuine to say. You are doing nothing more than instigating. Not allowed. Don’t accuse people of trolling in this thread. If you feel the need to call someone out, you know the way to the Pit, **Ambivalid**. ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2013, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-bigger-jerk/646807/63 "2013-01-11T20:53:44Z")
> [@Sevencl](#): > > Here’s the reality of the situation. Some people talk during movies. You can infer from that the fact that they ENJOY talking about the movie. You don’t like talking during movies, that’s fine and understandable - but your preferences are not somehow more valid and correct than the others! Either way, someone’s preferences are going to have to take a back seat to the others’, and someone’s enjoyment of the movie is going to be impaired. You say it should be the talkers, I say it should be the people who get annoyed at talkers. > > THESE ARE EQUALLY VALID BELIEFS. Not agreeing with something is NOT the same as trolling. Yeah, no. They are not equally valid beliefs. The auditorium belongs to the theater company, and therefore they get to make the rules re: behavior while using their property. Every theater around here (San Jose, CA) has an announcement before every film, saying essentially, “Don’t talk, don’t text, don’t use your bright little phone screen–basically, don’t be a dick to fellow theatergoers.” They make it humorous, but that’s the message, followed by, “If you do it, we have the power to kick your ass out of the theater and we _will_ use it.” I have seen them use it. It might be a bit more of a gray area if such an announcement isn’t made prior to the film, but in areas where it is, the rules are clear. Shut up and watch the movie, and don’t annoy your fellow theatergoers. ---
**Author:** ![Enright3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/enright3/32/2897_2.png) [@Enright3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enright3)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2013, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-bigger-jerk/646807/64 "2013-01-11T20:59:07Z")
> [@Sevencl](#): > > You really can’t expect a room full of hundreds of other people to conform to your movie-watching preferences. They paid to get in just like you. Yes you can. Not talking during a movie is not just a preference. It’s the behavior you’re expected to have. Just like you don’t talk during a play. People pay money to watch and listen to the movie. Someone else talking prohibits me from doing that. ---
**Author:** ![Krouget](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b38774/32.png) [@Krouget](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Krouget)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2013, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-bigger-jerk/646807/65 "2013-01-11T21:02:45Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > 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. > > Now, vote in the poll. I voted that the guy was the bigger jerk. In the situation you described, the movie was over. Cursing them out wasn’t going to change anything, and nothing was gained, other than the intentional offense. If he was forward enough to curse at them, he should have been forward enough to address them during the movie, where it would have mattered. That said, talking during movies _is_ obnoxious, but I’m just addressing the scenario. ---
**Author:** ![colander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e8c25b/32.png) [@colander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colander)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2013, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-bigger-jerk/646807/66 "2013-01-11T21:06:37Z")
> [@Enright3](#): > > Yes you can. Not talking during a movie is not just a preference. It’s the behavior you’re expected to have. Just like you don’t talk during a play. People pay money to watch and listen to the movie. Someone else talking prohibits me from doing that. I talk during plays. Juliet: Romeo, Romeo. Wherefore art thou Romeo? Me: He’s right over there, you stupid bitch! **GOD** ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2013, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-bigger-jerk/646807/67 "2013-01-11T21:16:24Z")
> [@colander](#): > > I talk during plays. > > Juliet: Romeo, Romeo. Wherefore art thou Romeo? > > Me: He’s right over there, you stupid bitch! **GOD** And any good Doper in the theater would loudly correct you by pointing out that Juliet is not asking where Romeo is, she is trying to figure out what it is that makes him Romeo and why she had to fall in love with a Montague. And would then immediately get on their phones to dig up a [cite](http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/262200.html). Now sit down and quit crinkling the wrappers on your cough drops. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2013, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-bigger-jerk/646807/68 "2013-01-11T21:20:34Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > 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. She has more of a right to sit in that seat than you have to put your feet on it, that’s for sure. > [@April\_R](#): > > Y’all don’t go to many movies in the South do you? Talking is no big deal. I go to many movies in the South, and talking is a big deal here. It hardly ever happens (except at movies for little kids) and when it does, people complain. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2013, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-bigger-jerk/646807/69 "2013-01-11T21:26:34Z")
I don’t think talking in the movies is a southern thing as much as a less education/lower economic status thing. In DC, I’ve noticed that there is much less talking in theaters that are located in affluent neighborhoods than in lower income areas. ---
**Author:** ![Yorikke](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yorikke/32/4335_2.png) [@Yorikke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yorikke)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2013, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-bigger-jerk/646807/70 "2013-01-11T21:27:33Z")
Guy should have sacked up and said something during the movie. He then compounded his mistake by being an asshole after the fact, when there was fuck-all to be done to rectify the situation. ---
**Author:** ![Yorikke](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yorikke/32/4335_2.png) [@Yorikke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yorikke)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2013, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-bigger-jerk/646807/71 "2013-01-11T21:30:15Z")
> [@Ambivalid](#): > > So what _would_ you consider rude behavior in a movie theater? Putting your wheels up on the seat? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Seanette](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/seanette/32/9139_2.png) [@Seanette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seanette)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2013, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-bigger-jerk/646807/72 "2013-01-11T21:37:41Z")
Talkers, cell phone screens, people who kick the seats in front of them… All reasons I don’t go to movie theaters any more. There are others (cost, sound level, temperature, seating comfort, cleanliness, etc.), but the behavior of other moviegoers is a major chunk of my preference for waiting for the home video release. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2013, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-bigger-jerk/646807/73 "2013-01-11T21:43:26Z")
> [@April\_R](#): > > Y’all don’t go to many movies in the South do you? Talking is no big deal. I go to all my movies in the South. IME talking back to and about the flick is a black thing. It is the prevailing custom at theaters in majority-black areas, but nowhere else that I’ve been (granting that the South is not monolithic and I haven’t been everywhere). It’s just a different attitude and approach, like the places that show movies with dinner and drinks. It’s not a problem, can be fun, if you expect it and go in open to it; it’s annoying as shit if it’s not the experience you’re looking for. ---
**Author:** ![colander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e8c25b/32.png) [@colander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colander)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2013, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-bigger-jerk/646807/74 "2013-01-11T21:55:33Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > And any good Doper in the theater would loudly correct you by pointing out that Juliet is not asking where Romeo is, she is trying to figure out what it is that makes him Romeo and why she had to fall in love with a Montague. And would then immediately get on their phones to dig up a [cite](http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/262200.html). > > Now sit down and quit crinkling the wrappers on your cough drops. > > Regards, > Shodan Yes good friend sir robot. My post was what we fleshy humans refer to as _a joke_. Please don’t send me to the organ vat ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2013, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-bigger-jerk/646807/75 "2013-01-11T22:00:37Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > I don’t think there is a place on Earth you are more likely to participate in/witness a confrontation with strangers than the movie theater. - No Aurora, CO jokeses. It can’t makes us, Precious, no it can’t! \* ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2013, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-bigger-jerk/646807/76 "2013-01-11T22:11:47Z")
> [@Blackberry](#): > > 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 was sitting about 4 seats over from the guy, they were directly behind the guy. I didn’t notice at all during the movie. I did not witness him say anything during the movie. This was out of left field for me when he walked back over to bitch them out. I was concerned he was grumbling at me for some inexplicable reason. > [@MLS](#): > > Alternately, if someone’s being loud and/or using a cell phone, you could ask a theater employee to please get them to stop. Yes, you can get a theater employee, if you can find one. But that takes getting up and walking out of the theater and finding an employee, and reporting the theater and the issue, and then usually they have to contact a manager or something, and then that person has to walk halfway across the building, and then you have to show them the people. This can take up to a couple minutes when you are in the middle of watching the movie. I had a slightly different situation with that experience. I went to see a movie, and when it came on, the lights were left on in the theater. So I got up to report it. I had to hike out of the theater, down the hall ~50 yards, find an employee, then they had to call on the radio to report to someone else, I went back to my seat. I missed a scene at the beginning, fortunately it wasn’t crucial, and it took another minute or so before someone finally managed to fix the problem. So which is the bigger annoyance? The annoying talking, or missing a scene to go report the talkers? > [@Sevencl](#): > > And since I don’t believe “swearing” is a thing, I have no problem with it. Well, regardless of issues of the specific words chosen, it does express a certain level of hostility more agressively than without those words. I mean, he didn’t make physical threats or anything, but he was clearly angry, and that leaked out through the choice of words he used to express his anger. > [@Simple\_Linctus](#): > > By the way, races and location were not mentioned in the OP, and that is hugely relevant. In many countries it’s totally acceptable to make loads of noise when watching the movie, to basically provide feedback as if it were a pantomine… clap at the good bits, boo the baddies, and so on. I assume from the OP that where this happened that kinda behaviour has lesser acceptability, but that’s not to say the loudies knew that. Yes, you are right, different demographics respond differently. This is Houston, both parties were whites, middle class income, in theaters where culture is “no talking”. > [@Infovore](#): > > Every theater around here (San Jose, CA) has an announcement before every film, saying essentially, “Don’t talk, don’t text, don’t use your bright little phone screen–basically, don’t be a dick to fellow theatergoers.” They make it humorous, but that’s the message, followed by, “If you do it, we have the power to kick your ass out of the theater and we _will_ use it.” Yep, exactly. Cinemark actually says, “Don’t be the person we ask to leave the theater, because we _will_.” ---
**Author:** ![Sevencl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@Sevencl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevencl)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2013, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-bigger-jerk/646807/77 "2013-01-12T02:08:48Z")
> [@Ambivalid](#): > > Doesn’t a person who’s paid full price for a movie ticket deserve to be able to then watch that movie unencumbered by someone else’s noise and disruption? Like I said, either way someone is going to be unhappy with the moviegoing experience. Everything you say against talking works the other way around. YOU could wait for DVD to watch in silence, YOU want to force your preference on others. So someone’s not going to get their way, and I’m saying there’s no reason it should be the talkers any more or any less than the non-talkers. Any time you’re out in public you run the risk of people doing stuff you don’t enjoy. You don’t have the right to expect them to stop; you should just deal with the fact that you can’t always have your way and live and let live. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2013, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-bigger-jerk/646807/78 "2013-01-12T02:47:45Z")
> [@Karen\_Lingel](#): > > 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!” > > These were middle-aged women, not teenagers. As I read on a button once, “You’re only young once, but you can be immature forever.” :rolleyes: I bet when they were growing up they got in trouble in school for talking all the time, and vowed that when they grew up they’d talk _whenever they wanted_, so there! ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2013, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-bigger-jerk/646807/79 "2013-01-12T05:35:48Z")
> [@Ellen\_Cherry](#): > > Not allowed. Don’t accuse people of trolling in this thread. If you feel the need to call someone out, you know the way to the Pit, **Ambivalid**. I send my apologies. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2013, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-bigger-jerk/646807/80 "2013-01-12T05:44:27Z")
> [@Sevencl](#): > > Like I said, either way someone is going to be unhappy with the moviegoing experience. Everything you say against talking works the other way around. YOU could wait for DVD to watch in silence, YOU want to force your preference on others. So someone’s not going to get their way, and I’m saying there’s no reason it should be the talkers any more or any less than the non-talkers. The person who “prefers” to be quiet in a movie theater isn’t forcing their preference onto everyone else simply by being quiet. But someone who “prefers” being loud in a movie theater _is_. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-bigger-jerk/646807.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-bigger-jerk/646807.md?page=5)