Movie etiquette not respected

By Nicole Rodriguez

We all have our pet peeves, and I'll be the first to admit that mine are weirder than most. However, one I could never understand until recently was my roommate's drastic aversion to movie theater popcorn.

While previously I would have dismissed this weird pet peeve, last weekend's movie theatre experience has changed my mind. It isn't that she's against the popcorn itself but rather against the obnoxious mannerisms that go with it - the loud chomping and the constant crumpling of the bag.

At a Friday night movie, my friends and I had the misfortune of sitting in front of the most obnoxious moviegoers in the theater. Not only was their chewing louder than the movie's soundtrack, but they proceeded to slurp their sodas, shake their Raisinettes around in their boxes and kick the backs of our seats throughout the entirety of the film.

I'm sure it wasn't that they were purposely trying to be annoying, it's just that they were too wrapped up in their own enjoyment to notice the irritation of everyone around them.

Though it's not our responsibility to avoid committing all of the pet peeves of strangers around us in a theater, there is a sense of a certain of movie-going etiquette to which we should all adhere.

First of all, feel free to eat and drink to your hearts content, but keep in mind that you're not at a private screening. There's no need to make the entire theater listen to the crunching of your popcorn. And when you hear a slurping noise coming from your soda, simply go to the concession stand and have it refilled. No matter how long you keep sucking at that straw, no more liquid is going to magically appear.

Secondly, I realize there isn't an excessive amount of leg room in most theaters, but continuously kicking the seat in front of you is not going to solve the problem. In fact, the only feat that it will accomplish is infuriating the poor person who happens to occupy that seat.

I don't think that acknowledging these common decencies is asking too much of a person, and in the end they will help to make the movie-going experience more pleasant for everyone.