Board 8 > Movie scenario - WWYD

(+) Yeah! (+)

On Thursday night, at about 9pm, I was one hour into watching The Batman. A few kids that were probably high school aged were laughing and talking to an obnoxious degree and using cell phone flash at times during this hour. Eventually, my girlfriend turns around and glares at them and asks the group to keep it down.

They apologize. After a few minutes, they start laughing and talking loudly again. She turns around again and says, youre making it really hard to enjoy the movie, can you please keep it down?

Two or three minutes pass and suddenly a large bucket of popcorn is throw directly at my head. Not a paper bag, but one of those plastic buckets. There is popcorn everywhere. My girlfriend immediately gets out of her seat and leaves the theatre and presumably is getting up to talk to management.

If youre me, what do you do in this moment?

Heres what I did:

Immediately get up a turn around and ask the nearest group behind me if they threw the popcorn and they said no. They pointed to the upper door in the back of the theater.

I had so much anger run through my body in that moment. Theres only been two times in my life where Ive wanted to attack somebody; this very moment, and one time at a concert where somebody threw an open can of Chef Boy Ardee in the air and got spaghetti all over my clothes.

I was livid. I walked to the aisle and just stood there, staring at the rows of people behind me and blocking their escape. Nobody moved and I could feel my heart racing.

I stood there and staff came and they searched for the group of kids. They had seeming left out the back door. I never saw this face to face. But even if I did what can I even do? Yell at them?

Im a grown adult. I cant attack a kid. Holding him down is probably technically assault. What course of action can you even take here? I felt so powerless and the movie was ruined.

Breathe in. Breathe out. What happened, happened. If there's ever a next time, staying calm and collected, walking up to and sternly talking to them would be a good idea. They might book it like they did here, or they might not listen but you could also attempt to get the theater audience on your side by appealing to their senses that the movie was ruined for them too. That might keep that clammed up for the rest of the showing.

You had your fight response triggered. That's normal.

I think what happened (kids leaving) was the best possible outcome

You did good. The right thing to do is to get up and yell at them in that supremely direct and succinct way that anger provides. Make things awkward. don't get violent or too ad hominem and the crowd will be with you for it.

You can either simply cow the kids, get them kicked out, or leave and get a refund. No solution is going to make you both feel completely better

Oh wow I was filled with rage just from reading that. I hate people like that
Fuck them

What would Batman do?

Jakyl25 posted...

What would Batman do?

Batman was literally only there because one of those kids is the son of Sal Maroni, and he was just hoping they would book it so he could string the lad up by the ankles and interrogate him for information about Maroni's location.

Jakyl25 posted...

What would Batman do?

https://media.giphy.com/media/jIzXYqaQ0nLkA/giphy.gif

Dumb ass kids.