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Printer-Friendly ModeOlder, not younger audiences more frequent offenders of movie theater etiquette
October 12, 2009 —
Teens are no good. Ask anyone over the age of 35. Or, as to not offend the still hip 35-year-olds out there, ask anyone over the age of 36.
Most of them will tell you how lousy teenagers are. Unless they are raising a teen, in which case they’ll probably plead with you to adopt theirs.
Society’s rebels, those misbehaving teens. Their music doesn’t sound like music. Their clothes are gaudy. They really like that stupid Twilight movie.
And I’m glad someone brought up movies, because if the stereotypes about teens are accurate, a movie theater littered with them would classify as a nightmare.
Just think of how much they would disrupt the movie with their talking and cell phones and other afflictions that scare the living hell out of their predecessors.
Being a regular moviegoer, I’ve made a pretty remarkable discovery. It’s a discovery that — supported by a grant-funded research — would probably get me a cover story in Time Magazine or at least Highlights for Children.
What I’ve uncovered (read: noticed from my theater seat with a bucket of popcorn the size of a small trashcan in my lap) is that middle-age and older audiences actually are more likely to cause disruptions during the movie.
Perhaps I’ve just encountered unusual circumstances. That’s one of the things that aforementioned $145 million research grant would help clear up.
But I’ve had more movie experiences disrupted by people old enough to be my parents than I have people young enough to be my little brother.
These incidents of disturbance usually don’t stray from a few basic patterns of behavior.
There are those who seemingly pay the price of admission just so they can talk throughout the movie.
When I saw No Country for Old Men, an older gentleman nearby, possibly offended by the title, talked for the duration of the film at a volume not unlike someone giving an oral presentation.
When I saw it a second time, there were several people my age and younger in the theater.
All of them had the sheer audacity to cease any verbalizing once the movie actually started. The nerve of those rotten kids.
Then there are the people who assume the unrequested job of reading out loud any text that appears on screen during the movie.
I’ve never been around a younger person who did that, but have several times had the pleasure of sharing a theater with an older audience member who was kind enough to read aloud complex words such as “bar” and “the.”
Finally, there are those folks who apparently black out any time the “please turn off all cell phones” message appears on the screen.
I’ve seen some younger people be guilty of this offense, but again, I’ve found older audiences more likely to infract on these social mores. That’s OK, though.
A moviegoing experience just isn’t complete until a key moment of the movie is obstructed by a digitized version of Billy Joel’s “Big Shot.”