Yelling at other people's children - is it okay? As an avid movie-goer and a non child-owner, I say yes.
Reto and I went to the movies this arvo. We saw I Am Legend, which is rated M (15 years and over) and was really quite grisly in a postapocalyptic/mutant killing machines/every man for himself kinda way. What's more, you really didn't have to see the movie to know that that was what it was going to be like (I believe the subtitle for the movie is something about the last man on earth not being alone, which is undeniably portentously creepy).
You would think it would be clear - don't take your gaggle of tiny wee under-10s to see this movie. I don't care how bored you are sitting around with them on a rainy summer holiday, this is not a movie for little girls in yellow dresses and their tiny little siblings.
Anyway, we got to the cinema and some huge man with enormous hair sat down in front of me (grr) and then a few adults with about 800 (well, maybe 5) little kids sat in the row behind us. I slouched and scrunched and sat up straight and twisted to see past the curly-headed tall-y, and the kiddies crinkled and crunched and slurped their way through their chips and icecream and popcorn and (most likely) vast quantities of red cordial*. Then the previews ended and almost instantly the movie theatre was ringing out with kiddy voices saying "where are all the people?", "what's happened?", "why is that hideous monster attacking the nice doggy?", "I don't want to watch any more!", "mummy, can we go home now?" etc.
Sigh. Once their attention was gone, the kiddies spent all their time either hiding their faces in the backs of their seats and whimpering in fear, or crawling on the ground under the pretext of allegedly looking for lollies that they had dropped on the ground. Actually, that's not true, sometimes they climbed over the backs of other chairs rather than going under them.
None of that was actually so bad (the movie really wasn't that good. We went to see it because it was on rather than because we really wanted to see it) but cumulatively it was kind of annoying and so the final straw for me was one little boy who spent a ridiculously long time crawling around on the floor under my seat, and who then sat on the floor a few seats down from me but in the same row and started stomping his heels onto the ground. He was wearing these shoes that lit up whenever he thumped them, so the effect was kind of like being in some sort of bizarro nightclub with a mini strobe and extremely bass-heavy music (plus of course very little dancing and images of post-apocalyptic hideousness being projected on the wall which would certainly make for a point of difference for a nightclub). I looked at the kid, who was engrossed in his shoe-based fun and I whispered "hey!" and him to get his attention. Mid-stomp he looked over at me with his big, wide, already pre-terrified eyes and I hissed at him "stop it!" in what I now look back on as a rather threatening manner (at the time I just thought I was being quite quiet) and suddenly his stomp turned into a gentle placing of his foot on the ground, and he sort of cringed a bit and his eyes got a little bit wider, and he crawled back under the seat and over to his mother.
The mother (or whoever she was) had been yelling at these kids all through the movie to absolutely no avail. I am not scary at all, and what I said was hardly controversial or mean, but this kiddy was terrified of me and the effect on his behaviour was instantaneous. I'm sure when I was a youngster myself I would have been much more effected by total strangers having a go at me than by my own parents doing it.
And so - I say that it's up to everyone to control the wayward kiddies of other people. Obviously this is a completely insane idea that would no doubt be appalling in reality and is probably overstepping all sorts of boundaries of common decency and what have you and no doubt if I had children and someone else told them what to do I would be outraged, but all that stuff aside I say go for it. There's nothing like the brisk and efficient disapproval of a total stranger to make someone who is too young to realise that they don't have to stand for it behave better.
* Red cordial being strongly associated with hyperactive kiddies. I doubt they actually sell it at the movies, but if they do I bet it costs about $5.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
Good job! I hate it when people fiddle with their mobiles... "Yes I know it's on silent, but the huge display lights up like a friggin' chrismas tree, dammit!"
And kids talking - but even worse : Adults talking - more specifically adult girlfriends talking - "Oh it's been sooo long - what have you been upto all these years?" And "This was a splendid idea, let's do this again". Yes I also thought it was a splendid idea, untill YOU came along, and now I probably WONT do it again, because YOU ruined the experience.
Why don't these pesky chatterboxes go to a café or a bar? They don't even watch the movie half the time, and when they do they get baffled because the lead character did this and that, and because they didn't pay attention, they're totally out of the loop.
Yes it is ok to tell people of in the movies - Kids as well as adults, and thank you for doing so.
for me, most annoying are the people who comment on what's going on in the movie, as if we were all blind and/or deaf and/or stupid, eg "he's got a gun" or "he's going to do X".
i also have a friend with whom i now refuse to see movies because she always looks at me whenever something funny/sad/scary happens, as if to check that i am (or she is) responding in an appropriate manner. seems silly, i know, but i find it really annoying.
I really enjoyed telling the kiddy what to do. That was the best bit.
Mischa : There's no responding correctly to a movie, is there? I mean if I'm watching a horror flick in the cinema, I usually laugh loudly whenever some stupid blond bimbo runs into a (totally predictable) beheading or gutting (go Jason, go!) - just to observe all the heads turning in my direction to see who that twisted psycho is.
I get a kick out of that...
I remember turning around once when I was watching The Blair Witch Project (I think I was taking a wee break from all the wibbly camera work) and looking at a sea of faces all going " ..." (that was me making that sort of terrified/appalled expression that I think we all wore during that movie). It was funny. We were like a theatre of clones.
no, there is no appropriate response to a movie, but my friend seems to think there is, and feels the need to confirm her own experience of the movie against mine. i wish she'd just break loose and laugh or cry or scream as she saw fit without having to check with me that this was the "correct" response.
i still vividly remember seeing a preview screening of life is beautiful in a packed cinema and my friend and i being the only ones to laugh in some of the funny scenes in the concentration camp. clearly it was acceptable to laugh in the early scenes, but once they were in a concentration camp, it was not permissible to laugh, even at deliberate jokes.
i also fondly remember seeing mulholland drive in a multiplex and enjoying the experience of the whole cinema becoming collectively and audibly more confused as each inexplicably bizarre twist unfolded.
so, in sum, i don't disapprove of (either predictable or unpredictable) vocal responses to movies; indeed, i welcome them.
Congratulations!! You possess "the voice"! If I tell any kid to stop doing something, they just laugh at me and then continue with their annoying pursuit. However, if my wife even looks at a child a certain way, the kid immediately freezes in his or her tracks and sulks away.
It's a good thing that we don't have kids of our own.
I oculd have used you at the powerhouse museum today! So many kids with no idea of manners!
Post a Comment