Theater manners and etiquette

Please allow me to raise a legitimate community concern: the issue of proper etiquette and good manners in public theatres.

When I watched a movie at the Hollywood Theatre recently, a man sitting behind me spoiled my film-viewing experience by talking loudly and incessantly, particularly during the movie’s more dramatic and intense moments, and even during the film’s climax.

Naturally, I found myself greatly irritated and vexed, as did other moviegoers I spoke to outside of the theatre, after the show. In fact, they thanked me for doing my part to try to alleviate the situation by looking in the culprit’s direction and shushing, unfortunately to no avail.

I was not the only shusher, by the way. I also heard a second shusher.

I suppose, in retrospect, I probably should have alerted the theatre’s management or called in an usher to remedy the situation, but this would entail having to leave the show and having to miss a good portion of the show. It would also provoke more confrontation and acrimony, which I naturally wanted to avoid, if possible.

So, in a comical re-creation of a popular Seinfeld episode, I resorted to ineffectively looking in the transgressor’s direction and shushing him. Actually, I started with looking and then followed up with shushing toward the end of the film, when looking and staring didn’t work after repeated trials. I foolishly thought that the looking and shushing combination might eventually work after repeated attempts. I was wrong. I was dealing with an “unshusable.”

On top of that, after the show, just before I left the building, an unfamiliar female accosted me in the lobby and apparently began to patronizingly reprimand me for my “disrespectful” staring and shushing behavior, which are actually common tools for reducing theatre chatter.

At first I really didn’t understand what she was saying to me, or what she wanted with me, but then I heard the following words and figured it out: “You NEED to relax. He is only a senior citizen.”

Now I have to admit, irritated by a complete stranger trying to condescendingly fault me for being vexed by a man’s loud and incessant talking, which he should have never been doing in a public theatre in the first place, I said: “No, I don’t need to do anything. He needs to shut up.”

And then, not willing to waste my time arguing with a perfect stranger with whom I have absolutely nothing to gain or accomplish (with whom there is no mutual interdependence or commonality), and not wishing to be embroiled in a public scene or confrontation with the potential to possibly escalate and result in some kind of legal action or public embarrassment, I chose the wise course of action and abruptly left the scene before anything more sinister had a chance to develop. (You never know.)

I don’t know the female who accosted me and therefore had no knowledge of her relationship to the jabbering man seated behind me. I didn’t bother to consider the woman’s interest in the matter because the issue had become moot, irrelevant and pointless after the show ended.

As a college student in the United States, I frequently went to theatres for entertainment. Yet, in all of that time abroad, I did not encounter too many people openly talking in movie theatres, as I have right here in Saipan, with a much smaller population.

I hope this letter promotes greater awareness of proper etiquette in public theatres, so that more people can enjoy films on the big screen without having to endure the enormous irritation of constant chatter and without being accosted and lectured by a total stranger for “inappropriately” being vexed by someone’s bad manners.

Of course, it would also be nice if one were not publicly and unfairly faulted for refusing to be hassled by a total stranger for being understandably annoyed by a third party’s discourteous behavior.

Charles P. Reyes Jr.
Gualo Rai, Saipan