From an item about a year ago from "The
Mirror," a daily British tabloid.
Two women were kicked out of a cinema for laughing out loud.
The movie they were ejected from was Absolutely
Fabulous, a 2016 comedy.
Some of the details are fuzzy -- reportedly,
nobody in the seats complained until theater management approached the ladies
in question. Apparently, the conversation that ensued is what other
movie-watchers found objectionable.
But whatever the source -- tee-hees or talking
-- the din was enough to give the pair the boot. They received a set of
complimentary passes on their way out. I guess the idea was to have them return
for a three-hankie weepy or a terrifying horror movie, where the respective
risks would be crying or screaming too loudly.
I have never been asked to leave a theater for
laughing too loud. I have, however, been chided by Kristin for my enthusiastic
response to big-screen funny business.
"Geez, dad! All I could hear was you going ‘HO-HO-HO!
HA-HA-HA!’ It was so embarrassing!!!"
I mean, who can help it? The Pink
Panther and Back to the Future and Ghostbusters are funny
and do warrant an audible, appreciable response. I remember
screaming in the theaters over Airplane
and the Naked Gun movies. And I
wasn’t alone.
I have noticed, though, that modern-day movie
audiences seem to be very reticent in the way they process a movie.
I remember seeing The Little Mermaid when
it came to theaters in 1989. The energy and dazzle of "Under the Sea"
was so impactful as a musical number that when the last chord of the song
sounded, the audience erupted in applause!
It was a beautiful demonstration of a shared experience
that a theater full of total strangers was compelled, in unison, to perform an
act that made no sense at all.
Think about it. Exactly who were
we applauding? It certainly wasn't singers/dancers in a live show. It was, I
guess, a set of animators, artists, musicians and singers who had done their
work months prior.
But I got it. The sequence was so inherently theatrical
that we responded theatrically.
Honestly, it was a little thrilling. It was
energizing. It was nostalgic. And it was wholly appropriate.
There's something about a large auditorium full
of people exploding in laughter at the same moment. It happens at concert halls
and comedy clubs and professional theaters all the time.
And it used to happen in the
movies, too. But not so much anymore.
I was thinking maybe it had to do with theater
size, that because they're no longer the cavernous spaces that fit hundreds of
people, audiences have lost the anonymity that allowed them the freedom to
burst out laughing and not be ridiculed for it.
Or maybe it's people becoming more aligned with
watching movies on personal devices. I don't think anyone would sit on the
subway watching a comedy on their iPad and physically laugh about some screen
gag.
Claire and I were discussing this and she rolled
her eyes: "This isn't yet one more thing you're going to blame on
Millennials, is it?"
"No," I said defensively. "....
um... Not really."
She did, however, see my point. "I'll laugh
at a comedian at a club, but not in a movie."
"Why?"
"I don't know... I don't want to disturb
anyone else."
"Well what about crying?" I asked.
"Crying can be quiet," she said.
"Nobody really needs to hear it."
Maybe it has something to do with movie comedies
that frankly aren't that funny. I never really appreciated the male-centric
slob comedies of the 1970s and 1980s (Animal House). So the 21st century
counterpart, the female-centric slob comedy (Bridesmaids), doesn't have
much appeal either.
All I know is this. Should you be seated near me
during a revival showing of, say, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,
don't expect me to hold it in.
I will laugh.
Out loud.
And hope I'm not ejected from the theater.
