Basically, yes. Who the f*ck do you think you are, putting your feet up on a theater seat?!?
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
Now sit down and quit crinkling the wrappers on your cough drops.
Regards,
Shodan
She has more of a right to sit in that seat than you have to put your feet on it, that’s for sure.
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.
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.
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.
Putting your wheels up on the seat? 
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.
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.
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
- No Aurora, CO jokeses. It can’t makes us, Precious, no it can’t! *
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.
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?
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.
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”.
Yep, exactly. Cinemark actually says, “Don’t be the person we ask to leave the theater, because we will.”
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.
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!
I send my apologies.
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.