The Tyranny of Etiquette

One of the joys of dating me is watching me scrap with random strangers. Sunday was no exception.

Tim and I decided to catch Prince Caspian (my review: I’ll take intense battle scenes with a side of bland, please!). We got to the Columbia theater just as the previews began and settled into our seats.

Once the previews ended, the chatter began. The couple next to me began to discuss the film, in a hilariously non-subtle stage whisper.

“They must really be at Cair Paravel!”
“I bet they find their gifts!”
“It must be the dwarf that got captured earlier!”

I couldn’t tell whether they believed the audience required narration, or whether they suffered from some sort of delusion where they believed they were watching the film in their living room and it was therefore appropriate to talk. At one point, I was looking around for white canes to see if at least one was blind. Or perhaps they thought they were watching a different film from everyone else in the theater, and we needed to know what was happening in their version of Narnia. Or maybe they were just jerks.

After twenty minutes of this nonsense, I’d had enough. So I leaned in and calmly said, “Excuse me, could you please stop the discussion? It’s distracting.”

A bit of back-and-forth, and the husband leans in to me and says, “I’m very sorry, but if you’re expecting complete silence, you may want to move.”

I’m very sorry, genius, but complete silence is exactly what I expected. It’s a movie theater. People pay their hard-earned cash to listen to the film, not to a pair of monotone exurb jackasses who are deluded enough to believe they’re better storytellers than C.S. Lewis. Criminy wickets on toast, people. This isn’t hard.

My response was, “It’s not complete silence I expect, but the ongoing discussion is quite rude.” Then I mentioned ducking out for an usher. The Twitter Twins fell unto an uneasy hush, and I went back to watching the movie. After a few scenes, the woman slipped out of the theater.

When she returned, her husband asked, “So, did you speak to the manager?” The woman stage-whispered back that the manager was unwilling to intervene.

And, here you have it, folks, in a package of self-righteous cheek and modern absurdity: someone actually complained to management to fight for their right to talk during a movie. They were right to be in the wrong, to ruin the experience for those of us who actually know better. This is the dawn of a new era of noxious self-centeredness. I deserved to be kicked out of the theater for wanting to watch the film.

After the movie, Tim and I had a good cackle over that one. We theorized that good manners are a form of tyranny, and the next civil rights crusade is going to be on behalf of rude people. Tim says the next culture war will be on behalf of public urinators, however, I think there will be an insurgency of people who turn without signaling. Or to throw darts in a crowded bar.

Or, perhaps, the Rudeness Crusade is already well underway. Saturday night we saw a man wipe his face with the hem of his shirt…in an upscale steakhouse. Awesome. America rocks.

In the comments section, please tell me what side you'd fight on in the Rudeness Crusade. Or debate whether Tim is going to have to wait outside with the car engine running every time he takes me somewhere.

PS - The photo is of Miss Manners, my personal hero.