On Theatre Etiquette...

When have we as a society become so disrespectful?

I go to the cinema a lot. Just this year, I’ve been to the cinema 79 times and we still have a full month to go. This means I’ve seen films at all times of the day, in different theatres, with diverse audiences. I’ve experienced it all. Recently, I’ve read a handful of think pieces on theatre etiquette on Substack but also elsewhere on the internet. I didn’t think I needed to add my voice to the bunch even if I wholeheartedly agree with the fact that some recent audience behaviours are just abysmal. The truth is, though, that this piece has been brewing since TIFF earlier this fall and while I’m not going to necessarily say anything new or groundbreaking in this post, I feel the need to get some of my thoughts out. Perhaps sharing them with the world will make me less angry about certain things.

I mention how I go to the theatres year-round at different times of the day. It is an undeniable fact that most theatres are (unfortunately) more empty than not most of the time. I recently moved to Berlin where I’ve been pleasantly surprised to see cinemas more than half full, even for regular screenings for films that have been playing for a few weeks, but prior to October, I lived in Toronto and was a regular at Scotiabank Theatre on Richmond and the TIFF Lightbox. Aside from special screenings at the Lightbox (e.g. the Cinematheque series) or previews for highly anticipated films at Scotiabank, both cinemas are mostly empty year-round. It doesn’t matter if I went at 2 p.m. on a weekday or a prime 7 p.m. time slot for a new release on a weekend, the number of audience members at a single screening rarely surpassed twenty – and I feel like I am being generous with that number now. The majority of those people, I am relatively certain, are regular cinema goers, people who visit theatres weekly like myself – and have done so for years, if not decades – and are well aware of how one is supposed to behave during a screening. The vast majority of the 79 screenings I’ve been to this year so far went without a hitch.

Unfortunately, the handful of screenings that had audience members acting out were really bad. I mentioned TIFF earlier and before saying anything about it further, I do feel the need to stress that TIFF audiences are, for the most part, terrific. People from all over the world come to Toronto for the love of film. They are passionate about the artform, knowledgeable, respectful, and usually great to make conversation with while waiting in lines. That said, there are a number of people – usually Toronto locals – who come out to the event for the sake of checking out a large cultural event in the city without actually caring about film at all. And don’t get me wrong, I think that’s fine – great, even! I’m not really into basketball but I always attended one or two Raptors games per season while living in Toronto. I get it. And TIFF is a huge deal, it’s one of the biggest film festivals in the world, it’s open to the public, and I find it completely understandable that someone would want to check it out even if they are not an obsessive cinephile like myself. Frankly, I welcome those people. I always say more people should go to theatres. What I don’t welcome, though, is their inability to adapt to social norms and customs one is expected to follow in a cinema. So, my point here is not that TIFF audiences are bad (on the contrary) but that such a large event brings out people who never go to the cinema, who then act in ways that are entirely disrespectful to other cinema goers as well as filmmakers who are often present at screenings at festivals like TIFF.

Phone usage was probably the biggest issue I’ve encountered at TIFF. There was one particular screening where I was sat in between two pairs who just wouldn’t shut up the entire film which was particularly infuriating but for the most part, it was the phones. Yes, your Twitter feed, in light mode with brightness turned all the way up, is very disruptive while I’m trying to watch a film on the big screen. People will claim that they paid for the ticket to be there so they can do whatever they want but completely disregard that they are ruining the experience of other moviegoers who also paid a ticket to be there and deserve to get an experience they paid for, i.e. an uninterrupted movie screening in a quiet, dark room. I’ve been appalled at what I’ve been seeing online with the recent release of Wicked, clips of the film recorded with phones and posted on TikTok, which is not only disruptive to everyone in the theatre but also, quite literally, illegal. Any pushback to such behaviour is met with rudeness and individualistic entitlement that makes me wonder when have we as a society lost a concept of what it means to live in a society?

What was ultimately the last straw that made me want to write this post was Cynthia Erivo’s recent Thanksgiving interview in which she encouraged moviegoers to sing along at their Wicked screenings. Call me insane, but I find that outrageous. This also comes only a few days after Dwayne Johnson encouraged fans going to see Moana 2 to sing along in the theatres. I am glad that an AMC spokesperson made a statement against this and I truly hope that if you have seen either of the two films in the last week or two that you had good experiences, hopefully without any singing audience members. However, seeing these celebrities come out to encourage such behaviour makes me wonder what is wrong with people? Singing along in a theatre or typing away on your phone has never been acceptable. Is it the fact that people go to theatres less and are quite literally unaware of the rules? But ‘the rules’ are common sense. You shouldn’t want to be on your phone if you came out to watch a movie. You shouldn’t start singing loudly in a public place without any consideration for those around you in literally any situation. Has the isolation of the pandemic made us lose all social consciousness?

Over the summer, I’ve seen similar conversations on TikTok in regards to concert etiquette. In this instance, though, I think the issue is directly related to the pandemic and the fact that a whole generation of kids lost out on roughly two years of concert going experiences that would have taught them the basics. Once the world returned to normal, everyone was all too desperate to jump back into their lives – understandably so – but this led to a disregard for learning the basic concert etiquette. It’s different with the movies, though. Concert audiences tend to skew younger so my pandemic hypothesis makes sense. With cinemas, there are truly all demographics present and many of the individuals acting disrespectfully are far from young. I think the pandemic certainly is a factor but it can’t be the explanation.

Speaking of young audiences, I find it particularly problematic that celebrities are coming out to encourage cinema singalongs during regular screenings as children tend to be more easily influenced by their favourite actors or celebrities than adults do. Moana 2 is quite literally a children’s movie. A star of the film encouraging them to sing in a full theatre and consciously disrupt the moviegoing experiences of other audience members is the exact opposite of what the star of the film should be doing. It speaks volumes, though, that these celebrities find this behaviour acceptable and I think it’s a lot less about cinema etiquette and a lot more about the fact that they are so far removed from reality that they don’t know what a regular cinema going experience is like. It's fine to sing along when you’re watching a musical in a private theatre, it’s an entire thing entirely to do so in a public theatre, and this is a distinction Dwayne Johnson and Cynthia Erivo may not understand.

I don’t have answers to many of the questions I brought up in this post so I don’t have a profound conclusion to this piece that solves the issues I’ve brought up. However, what I am going to leave you with is a simple request to please be respectful when going to the theatre next time. Please know what you came for and what others around you came to the cinema for. Please use your common sense and don’t be dense on purpose. At the end of the day, we all just want to watch a movie.

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I recently wrote a piece about a really great theatre experience I had which you might want to check out as a palate cleanser :)

Stop Putting Films Straight to Streaming

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