Theater – Etiquette Hell

Movie Your Butt To A Different Seat

April 17, 2017admin89 Comments

While I don’t often go to the movies anymore now that I have young kids, a previous post (and its comments) about theater behavior got me thinking about the many, many movies I attended in my younger years and a situation that arose often that aggravated me.

Being a “follow the rules” person, I knew, even as a teen, that if I was seeing a very popular movie on a weekend night I needed to arrive extra early to make sure I could procure seats together with my friends. Often I would arrive 30 minutes before showtime and pick the “perfect” spot with my movie mates before the theater filled up. Inevitably, a group of 2 or 3 people would walk in at the end of the previews and see a nearly-full theater. The problem arose when they’d notice 3 empty seats in my row (not together as groups would keep a seat between them as “buffers”), and ask everyone in the row to move over so they could slide in on the end. Because I hate confrontation I’d always comply and end up behind a very tall person or in a suspiciously stained/broken seat, and end up straining my neck to see around them for the movie or hearing my chair squeak with every shift of body weight.

What should be the etiquette when something like this happens? Technically there are 3 open seats and 3 people who need them. To deny their request would seem really rude and petty. But at the same time why should I, who arrived significantly early to obtain a “good” seat, have to be inconvenienced for their lack of proper planning and arriving 30 seconds before (or sometimes right after) the start of a movie? 0115-15

Note to readers, I needed to reread the second paragraph a few times before I realized the writer is describing a situation where a theater row has several unclaimed seats that are scattered in the row as opposed to being clustered together. The late arrivals are requesting people move towards the middle of the row to consolidate all the empty seats into a few on the end of the row.

The answer is simple. Repeat after me, “I’m sorry but I cannot accommodate that request. You are free to use this empty seat though.” It has always been my understanding that if you arrive late to the theater, you take whatever seats you can find even if that means your party is split among several rows. One of the benefits of arriving early is that you do not have to resort to that but can choose to seat yourselves as a group.

Thankfully, American theaters are finally selling tickets for specific seats so this may be less of a problem.

Laugh Til You Shriek

September 14, 2015admin69 Comments

Recently I surprised my husband with tickets to his favorite comedian. He had no idea where we were going and who we were seeing until we actually sat down in the theater and the opening act mentioned the big name. It was so hard to keep it secret for so long! So the opening act started, who was pretty funny, and we heard it for the first time: the lady’s ginormous laughter who was seated right behind us. This lady laughed at EVERYTHING, even things that did not seem very funny. Her laugh was so loud and obnoxious that we couldn’t even hear what the comedian was saying. This carried through to the main act.. at some point I must admit that I somehow blocked her out while trying to listen to the main act, but her laugh somehow made it through my wall eventually. Everyone was turning around to look at this lady and she never took a hint—along with the screaming laughter there were loud “Oh My God’s!!!” and “No, He Didn’t!!!”. It was just insane. Was there anything we could have done? I mean, it’s a comedy show, and you’re supposed to laugh.. but how loud is TOO loud? 0911-15

That’s a good question for which I don’t know if I have an appropriate answer. The woman most definitely had the ability to refrain from her verbal comments and to regulate her laughter to the non-shrieking decibel levels. But true belly laughter is harder to rein in and by “belly laugh”, I mean the kind of laughter that overcomes you for short periods of time otherwise you would lose your breath. It’s great in short bursts but just is not sustainable for an hour and a half. During a comedy show, there is an expectation that jokes will be followed by a response from the audience and that the audience self regulates how long that period of laughter will be. However, some comedians time the delivery of jokes to keep that laughter momentum going and that’s when you get instances where you miss the first part of new joke because the laughter from the previous one hasn’t really died done enough. I really don’t know what to tell you since I do not know who the comedian was and whether this was a method of joke delivery he chose thus setting up the situation where someone just keeps laughing and laughing and laughing. Let’s see what the readers think…

Strangers And Shrieks In The Darkness

June 24, 2015June 24, 2015admin99 Comments

This was originally published to the blog on Monday, however, a disk drive on the server died Monday afternoon and everything posted to the site for the previous 24 hours evaporated into thin air. That includes all readers’ comments to this original post. So, here we go again….I’m not sure I can recreate my original comments to this but will try.

I saw this article on Huffington Post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nicole-skaro/to-the-man-who-yelled-at-the-movie-theater-about-my-child_b_7435234.html

I immediately thought of your blog. Basic synopsis: A woman brought her 3 children to see Tomorrowland, a nine year old, 2 year old and 20 month old. The 20 month old is a cancer survivor and the type of cancer he had damaged his vocal chords. Therefore his laughter comes out more like a shriek than a laugh. The woman said she removed him when he was crying and brought him back in when he was better. However he was apparently shrieking at different scenes in the movie and a man finally shouted “get that kid out of here”. The woman retaliated by holding her child up at the end of the screening and saying to whomever had shouted at her that her child was a cancer survivor, etc.

My take: the kid was too young to the movie regardless of his cancer history. The shrieks could definitely have been distracting. The man was rude to shout at her (he should have gotten someone from the theatre to intervene) but the woman was rude to retaliate. Kids that young shouldn’t go to movies in the first place as they are loud, dark and potentially scary places and probably wouldn’t be able to appreciate a live action sci fi flick like Tomorrowland (the woman confirmed on Facebook this is the movie she saw).

What do you think? 0528-15

My initial thought was to wonder how this mother knew for certain that the male voice yelling to “Get that kid out of here” was specifically in regards to her 20-month old son when she reports that there many other children with adult in attendance at this movie. If the video she includes in her message is an indication of how the 20-month old sounds like when he’s giggling, I’m fairly certain most people would perceive that as shrieking. I wouldn’t want to hear that throughout a movie I was watching. She also reports that the 20-month child’s older sibling, her 2-year old child, is “bouncing off the seat” which, in itself, can be quite distracting.

This appears to be a case where the two youngest children should have been at home under the care of a babysitter rather than “watching” a 130 minute long movie that is not really appropriate for their age group.

When 9-Year Old Girls Steal Your Joy

April 29, 2015admin148 Comments

I was attending a midnight showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show at a local theater, but was about an hour early. Midnight showings are meant to be wild, crazy, and sexy, with everyone having fun, so in the spirit of the show I had dressed up as “Columbia” from the “floor show” sequence of the film (it’s common for people to dress as characters). The outfit was very revealing, but I was wearing additional clothing while waiting in the lobby with some friends. However, I had lots of face paint on because the character wears clown-like face paint during the scene.

I saw a flash to the side of me, and turned to see some girls, aged about 9, taking photos of me without my consent and giggling. They had accidentally left the flash on, and acted shocked and embarrassed when I glared at them but soon resumed taking photos of me, laughing and making comments like “what a freak” purposely just loud enough for me to hear. I have some social anxiety, and at this point I was devastated and depressed. I felt like a big idiot. I wanted to curl up under the table.

Soon, two adult women came over to the girls, who pointed me out and gleefully told them how weird I was. The women scolded the girls and told
them to leave me be, because “if her momma lets her go out in public like that, let her do it.” May I add that I am an adult, and my “momma” does not dictate how I dress. But I did appreciate them telling the girls they were wrong.

The women began to approach me. I thought they would apologize on behalf of the girls, but instead one of them said coldly to me “You know, they’re just kids. Okay?”
I was shocked but I managed to say “Uh…I know…” She repeated, “Kids. They’re just little kids, okay?” Then she gave me a look that confirmed she, too, thought I was a product of Satan, and marched away with the kids in tow, still giggling and pointing their phones at me. No apology. She had the nerve to insinuate that I had been the rude one! I haven’t been back to see the show at that theater again. I can’t bring myself to. 0425-15

For those unfamiliar with Rocky Horror Picture Show characters, this is what “Columbia” looks like.

Two of my daughters dress up in full costumed regalia for the premieres of movies like the Pirates of the Caribbean series and the Lord of The Rings/Hobbit movies so this custom is not unfamiliar to me. It’s loads of fun and movie premieres can be highly anticipated events in our family primarily for the opportunity to show off costumes that have required months of preparation. My daughter’s dwarf costume complete with realistic beard and craft foam “leather” armor was pretty amazing.

However, there is an unspoken understanding that wearing costumes in public places most certainly does attract attention. The vast majority of it is positive or at least neutral. My daughters have been asked to pose with theater patrons, particularly children, for photographs because people perceive them as being a live interpretation of what they have or about to see. It just adds to the fun for everyone. Are there the occasional curmudgeons who whisper under their breath about how stupid it is to wear a costume? Yep, there sure are…and who gives a flying flip what they think?

You permitted a few 9-year old girls to steal your joy. Two total strangers who haven’t yet celebrated a double digit birthday had such enormous power over you that they changed your entire attitude and mood and altered your future behavior. At Ehell.com, we really discourage the unfortunate practice of giving other people considerable power to affect our thoughts and actions negatively. A polite spine also includes the ability to simply not care what the rude riff raff of the world thinks or says about us.

When you glared at the girls, all you did was send the very clear message that you can be manipulated to react poorly and that you have lost control of the situation to a pack of little girls. I would never give anyone that kind of information about myself so that they have a power advantage over me. The beauty of etiquette is that it gives us a framework of behavior so that we retain control of ourselves and often of the situation itself. You could have completely ignored the girls since their opinions of your costume and make-up is totally irrelevant to you due to the fact that they are strangers who you have never seen before and will likely never see again. The gutsy Ehell way of doing things would have been to stride right up to the girls with a happy smile on your face, introduce yourself as follows, “Hi, “I’m costumed as ‘Columbia’ from the movie ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’ playing in about an hour. She’s a pretty cool character in the movie, are you familiar with her? Would you like a photo with me? ” If they decline, giggling, you confidently stride back to your waiting friends waving, “Good bye, enjoy the rest of your night!” Doing so sets the atmosphere for the situation to be a positive one with you clearly in control of yourself, the situation and you come off looking powerful and gracious. Win-win all around for everyone.

Theater Theatrics

January 14, 2015admin152 Comments

Over the weekend, I attended a play at our local high school. It was a fundraiser for a theater in a neighboring city. It’s a very nice event, but in order to maximize seating, they hold it in an auditorium, rather than the normal theater. This was the first time it was held it my town. I have season tickets to the theater and was very excited that they were doing something in our town.

Having been to the fundraisers before I knew to line up early as all seating is general admission. We had five people in our party, and there were about 20 -30 people in front of us. As the doors open, all of the people went down the more visible, but longer, hallway to the right. Knowing there was a second door on the left, I went that direction, thus starting the split flow of people into the auditorium. This is important because it meant that my party was one of the first into the auditorium.

The auditorium is arranged with five rows in front, a large aisle way, with the majority portion of the seating behind that. Knowing the auditorium, I went to the first row of that second section, as it’s just about eye level with actors on the stage. Perfect viewing in my opinion. There was no one in this row yet, but someone had saved the first four seats (by placing jackets on them) so I moved past those to the center. (Saving seats this way is common at the high school, as the performers often save them for teachers, parents, and crew of the play)

Suddenly, this woman comes barreling in from the other stairway- literally running in the row. She throws up her hands and says ” these are ours”. She quickly turns to her party and asks if they have enough seat then turns back to me and announces that they don’t have enough. I checked with the last person in our party, and there were a couple seats between her and the saved seat, so we moved back. Freeing up two seats for the woman’s group. We sat down and she says ” We still don’t have enough. There are nine of us, you’ll need to move”. My only reply is ” I’m sorry. There is still plenty of seating in the other rows.” After grumbling, she sends her two teenagers in her group to sit somewhere else.

Now, being this is a family friendly play, I expect a certain amount of whining, crying, and other issues that comes with having small children in a three hour play. But I was not prepared for what happened next. The woman placed her 6 year old next to me. The child could not sit still. Up, down, up , down, up, down. It was really wearing on my nerves. Worse was the fact that she would turn in her seat and put her feet on me, getting my pants dirty. The mother did nothing. When they returned from the lobby at intermission and the process started to repeat, I asked the child if she could please try not to put her feet on me. The mother freaked and demanded to know why I was speaking to her child. I repeated my request. “She’s doing nothing wrong!”. I disagreed and told her that I understood that it was a long performance and some fidgeting was expected, I would appreciate it if my pants weren’t subject to her childs shoes. “Well, I never…!” she started to reply. In for a penny, in for a pound- I interrupted and told her that I though the woman behind her daughter would probably appreciate her remaining in her seat, rather than standing and obstructing her view. Much to my surprise a voice said ” I really would, it’s quite distracting”. I hadn’t realized she had been watching the exchange.

To her credit, the woman did try and keep the child somewhat settled for the second half. But midway through, the child needed to use the restroom, and they couldn’t get out of the row. So she started screaming. ” I need to go!”

After the play, the woman behind us thanked me for speaking up.

All in all, it was a wonderful play, but definitely tested my patience and my etiquette skills. 0112-14