Movie theatre etiquette

SANTOSH KC

We have waited all month watching the commercials for a movie we are dying to see. It’s finally in the theatres and we have made plans to go.

We scrimped and saved to buy the tickets, soda and popcorn, which cost a fortune now, and we can’t wait to see if it’s as good as the commercials make out it to be.

Saturday night arrives and we are standing in a line with hundreds of others who came to enjoy this great movie. We get inside and pick a seat, munching on our popcorn, waiting for the lights to go down.

Soon the lights dim and the trailers for upcoming movies start, and the evening excitement begins. No sooner does the movie start we hear a bawling baby.

So, the month long anticipation of the movie and the unnecessary expense go just because people are uncouth. Recommendations for the future is wait till the movies come out on DVD and watch it in the peace of your own home, make your own popcorn and enjoy.

Fast forward a few decades and the lusture of the cinema theatre have very much faded. The movie theatre is competing with television where trigger happy viewers can push a button to wander through hundreds of channels that cater for almost every kind of taste, video games of every genre and description, and home theatre systems give you much the same kind of experience in the comfort of your own home.

We are overwhelmed by choice in what I believe is the instant gratification generation.

The last time I was at the movie , not only was there the inevitable juvenile making noises and throwing food, there were cell phones going off, people talking on the phone, having conversation with one another, children fighting and more. I used to love to go the theatres, the larger screen and the darkness and quiet around allowed us to fall into the movie with our own imagination.

Now there are so many distractions we may even miss part of the movie. As manners decline, rudeness rises and soon the movie theatre will no longer be a place to have fun. The decline of movie theatre etiquette is a paradigm for the general decline of civilisation.

We live in a ‘me’-driven society. People somehow believe that the world around them

either does not exist or doesn’t matter.

The fact that people can walk into a crowded room and not give a second thought to disturbing everyone around them,

suggests a larger problem. Even our nation’s leaders perpetuate this. There is no simple solution. The problem extends beyond movie theatres.