Bad behavior at 'Barbenheimer' reflects a worrying trend [View all]

[mahatmakanejeeves]

The last time I saw a movie in an actual theater was 29 years ago. It was "My Own Private Idaho," and I saw it in a theater in downtown Portland near a statue that appears, renamed, in the film.

Things like this make it unlikely I'll ever go to a movie theater again.

I just can't imagine who's giving Americans the impression that being rude and boorish is now acceptable.

STYLE

Bad behavior at ‘Barbenheimer’ reflects a worrying trend

Drunken outbursts, public nudity and nonstop cellphone use disrupt packed theaters. Have people forgotten how to go the movies?

By Sofia Andrade and Janay Kingsberry
August 5, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EDT

Ryan Gosling was having a big moment on-screen bro’ing up the Barbie Dreamhouse as Ken when Tess Connolly, 22, first spotted something amiss. ... It was a 9:30 p.m. showing of “Barbie” at the Regal Cinema in downtown Denver, and the theater’s manager had begun pleading with a man seated a few rows in front of Connolly and her younger brother. The man, the manager said, needed to leave. But the moviegoer wouldn’t budge. That’s when five security guards showed up and Connolly truly took in the spectacle in front of her — and, unfortunately, it wasn’t Ken shouting “Sublime!”

“One of the security guards was saying to the guy, ‘Dude, you cannot be naked in here,’” she recalled. “The guy was all confused and upset that he couldn’t be naked in the theater … he was getting all worked up.” The security guard proceeded to ask the audience to assist in 86’ing the man. According to Connolly, many responded by yelling things like: “Get this freak out of here!” and “My teenage girls are here!” Meanwhile, “Barbie” kept playing in the background. ... Though the man was eventually removed from the packed theater, Connolly worries she may have missed the funniest part of Greta Gerwig’s long-anticipated film. ... “It was the moment that we all were going to start dying laughing. And the security guard was totally ruining our moment, being like, ‘Everybody start yelling.’ And we were like, ‘No, we’re trying to watch the movie,’” Connolly said.

“Barbenheimer” — the twin release of blockbusters “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” — may have broken box office records and brought people out to the theaters in droves, but it also highlighted a very real problem: Some people seem to have forgotten how to go to the movies, with widespread reports of drunken outbursts, rampant cellphone use and exhibitionism.

At a “Barbie” showing at an AMC theatehttps://nypost.com/2022/12/28/a-rowdy-shouting-woman-stopped-broadways-death-of-a-salesman/r in Washington on Sunday, a man wearing a pink tank top and body glitter loudly identified with the Kens on-screen. Throughout the film — and despite multiple shushes — he would cheer, sing or stand up and pump his fist from his front-section seat whenever the Kens rallied against the Barbies. He apologized to the audience at one point, explaining that he was “wasted” but nevertheless continued disrupting the show until the film’s climax, at which point he got into a slap fight with an acquaintance sitting beside him. (A representative for AMC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

{snip}

The mayhem isn’t limited to movie theaters. The past year has seen a disturbing trend of audience members throwing objects at musicians onstage. Over on Broadway, an unruly woman halted a performance of “Death of a Salesman” back in December, while a controversial Playbill exposé from the spring detailed aggression toward ushers and other theater workers, who reported being spat on and screamed at regularly. Not even the skies are safe: This week, an American Airlines pilot went viral for lecturing “selfish and rude” passengers on airplane behavior (“Nobody wants to hear your video”).

{snip}

Avi Selk contributed to this report.

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By Sofia Andrade
Sofia Andrade is a features intern at The Washington Post. Her work has been featured in the Nation, Slate, el Nuevo Herald, the Miami New Times and elsewhere. Twitter https://twitter.com/bySofiaAndrade

By Janay Kingsberry
Janay Kingsberry is a staff reporter for Style where she writes features with a gender and identity focus and contributes to the section’s breaking news coverage. She joined The Post in March 2021 as a multiplatform editor for The Lily, skillfully producing content across platforms and writing for the Lily Lines newsletter. Twitter https://twitter.com/janaykingsberry