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An enormous amount has been made lately about Barbie and (to a lesser extent) Oppenheimer reversing the terminal decline of the theatrical cinema experience. The films have enmeshed themselves in the cultural conversation in ways that movies simply don’t do any more and, as a result, scores of people who don’t habitually go to the cinema are being dragged out to see them. This is a good thing. Anything that prolongs the life of cinema deserves to be celebrated.
Which isn’t to say that it’s a perfect outcome, because all these newcomers have clearly forgotten how cinemas are supposed to work. The last few weeks have seen a rash of headlines about a number of regrettable blow-ups that have occurred because people just can’t seem to remember the basic rules of cinema etiquette any more.
In Maidstone, a woman took her ticketless child into Barbie; an act that resulted in a stand-up, full-volume physical fight. A Brazilian Barbie screening ended with a similar brawl, apparently because a woman let her child watch YouTube throughout the movie. Nor is this confined to Barbie. In June, a fight broke out at a screening of The Little Mermaid in Florida, and in March the same thing happened in France at the end of Creed III. Meanwhile, Twitter is awash with tales of poor cinema etiquette, from talking during films to taking photos during films.
Now, there are two ways of looking at this. The first is that social media – TikTok especially – has made it easier for people to record and publish fights in cinemas, to the extent that the Maidstone melee seems to have been posted by multiple accounts from multiple angles, like a sort of mega Zapruder. Perhaps, for all we know, cinemas have always been a tinderbox of mouthy idiots itching for a scrap, but it’s only since the advent of shareable video that anyone has actually noticed.
But then again, the fact that all these fights were recorded on phones – in an environment that repeatedly and explicitly discourages the use of phones – speaks to a deterioration of etiquette in itself. Plus, as a regular cinemagoer myself, I’ve seen first-hand the lack of basic common sense that has trickled in over the last few months.
I went to see Barbie on opening day and, although it was nice to see a full auditorium for once, it was slightly confusing to see how many people had brought their children along. Not their older, age-appropriate 12A children, either – their tiny, young toddlers who in all honesty were unlikely to appreciate the intricacies of a film that largely exists to deconstruct feminist iconography. The film was preceded by a trailer for Joy Ride, in which all the characters start singing the line from WAP about all the whores in the house. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen several dozen mums simultaneously panic in the dark, but I’d recommend it.
So what’s causing this spate of awfulness? My guess is our old friend Covid. The lockdowns of 2020, coupled with the film studios’ sudden mania for slinging all their new releases on the nearest streaming platform, stopped people from going to the cinema altogether. Nobody wants to spend several hours sitting shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of strangers in an enclosed space when there’s a fatal virus going around, after all. And it isn’t like people went to the cinema all that much before then either, given the enormous cost of tickets and snacks and drinks and babysitters.
The fact that Barbie is so successful means that, for a huge percentage of its audience, this will be their first cinema visit since 2019. And four years is easily long enough to forget some of the rules. They’re so used to twin-screening during films at home that it seems alien for them to not have their phones in their hands. They’re so used to talking through films at home that it seems unreasonable to be expected to remain silent in a cinema. And when this sort of behaviour meets a wall of people who have spent a considerable amount of money to just enjoy a film, of course violence is going to erupt. It’s like stumbling across an unexploded bomb, or being on a standing room only train next to someone who has their backpack slung in an empty seat. Things are always going to kick off.
The good news is that the wild success of Barbieheimer might have reminded people how much fun it is to go and see a new film in the cinema. Things are rough now, etiquette-wise, but if this has shaken people out of their slumber enough for them to return to cinemas regularly, then it will only be a matter of time before they start obeying the rules once again. The bad news is that Barbieheimers don’t come along every day. Unless The Meg 2 inexplicably ends up becoming a Star Wars-level hit, it might be a while before these people return to the big screen again.
Yes. I’ve stopped going to theaters because it’s always just a horrible experience. People using their phones, showing off on social media. People talking, kids screaming, people putting their feet on my seat. The theaters are always dirty.
None of this is there lower level staffs problems, it’s management. Give the employees some actual power and let them kick people out. They’re so damn focused on making people happy but what about my happiness of a good uninterrupted movie?
Let them stop a movie in it’s tracks and kick out the group of drunk moms in the back, or the teens making a scene. Kick them out with no refunds and I’m pretty sure etiquette will make a comeback.
Until then I’ll just wait until the movie is out and I’ll watch it at home with my own snacks in my own theater setup.
I don’t go to the cinema a lot, and not at all since Covid, but it has never been a particularly pleasant experience if you go immediately after a film’s release. The first week was always full of rowdy, obnoxious people. So I wait 3-4 weeks and pick a showing at an unpopular time. Tuesdays and Thursdays were always good picks, because most people would try to go on Fridays or Saturdays (and also Wednesdays during the long-running Orange Wednesday offer). When possible, I’d pick times that overlap with school hours, or else overlap dinner time. It’s much easier to enjoy the cinema when there’s less than 10 people there. My partner and I once effectively had a completely private showing, because it was the film’s last day in the cinema and nobody else went.
Showings with subtitles for the hard of hearing are good times to go, too. Few people pick those showings because they think the subtitles detract from the experience. I find they actually improve it, because the background music is usually so loud that the voices are hard to hear properly anyway. So the subtitles showings allow you to follow dialogue better and there’s less people there. Win-win.
I find my fellow Americans to be too obnoxious, belligerent, and trigger happy to go to theaters or concerts anymore. I don’t even feel very safe driving in my normal-sized car to work or the grocery, as I’m surrounded by reckless idoots in giant SUVs and pickup trucks. We’ve regressed in so many ways.
I think I’ve been to the movies once since covid and I have no plans to go back. The tickets are too expensive to be ruined by people being on their phones or talking to each other about what happens next. If there was the option to take your own headphones in to drown out the dickheads I’d probably go back.
I’ll lend some of the opposite experience here. I’ve been to quite a few movies since COVID including Barbie, and have not had any issues whatsoever. I feel like this is an example of the negativity bias coming forth. We only hear about the negative experiences because people don’t go online to say how quiet everyone in the theater was
This line is likely the most accurate
social media – TikTok especially – has made it easier for people to record and publish fights in cinemas
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An enormous amount has been made lately about Barbie and (to a lesser extent) Oppenheimer reversing the terminal decline of the theatrical cinema experience.
The last few weeks have seen a rash of headlines about a number of regrettable blow-ups that have occurred because people just can’t seem to remember the basic rules of cinema etiquette any more.
Not their older, age-appropriate 12A children, either – their tiny, young toddlers who in all honesty were unlikely to appreciate the intricacies of a film that largely exists to deconstruct feminist iconography.
The lockdowns of 2020, coupled with the film studios’ sudden mania for slinging all their new releases on the nearest streaming platform, stopped people from going to the cinema altogether.
And when this sort of behaviour meets a wall of people who have spent a considerable amount of money to just enjoy a film, of course violence is going to erupt.
Things are rough now, etiquette-wise, but if this has shaken people out of their slumber enough for them to return to cinemas regularly, then it will only be a matter of time before they start obeying the rules once again.
