As an avid comic book fan, I was super excited for the releases of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Wonder Woman and Alien: Covenant movies.
I saw Guardians of the Galaxy twice because both my boyfriend and family wanted to see it. I was hoping that during my second viewing I would be able to pick up on dialogue or parts of the story that I might have missed the first time.
Instead I came back wondering why there are not stricter phone rules at movie theater.
While trying to pay attention, I found my eyes constantly drifting to someone texting. Not only was the phone on full brightness, but the person wasn’t even trying to be discrete.
Their white phone screen was the only object my eyes were attracted to in the dark room.
Hearing a baby cry in a movie theater is a bit annoying, but typically the speaker volume is high enough that I can still hear the dialogue. It’s understandable that parents don’t always have someone to babysit their children, so getting angry seems irrational.
Seeing a bright phone screen a few rows down from me is different. A baby isn’t aware that they shouldn’t be making noise in the theater, but adults (young and old) know better.
I wish I had the power to make someone turn off their cell phone during a movie, but unfortunately I don’t and movie theaters seem to prioritize some distractions over others.
I’ve seen people get kicked out of movie theaters for talking too much, but I’ve never seen someone booted out for texting, most likely because it’s easy to put the phone away when an employee walks by.
Just last April, AMC Entertainment brought up the idea of allowing people to text in theaters but experienced a strong backlash against it, ultimately dropping the idea that same day.
It’s the job of movie theater employees to make sure the movie viewers are content, so chances are that they will listen to complaints. The problem is that to make a complaint, you would have to miss part of the movie you paid for.
I’m not going to pay for a movie on the big screen if I’ll end up staring at a tiny screen on the other side of the theater.
