To Find this Woman in the Cinema Rude

[LessMissAbs]

Me and my friend were watching a film in the cinema tonight. She doesn't wear a watch and must have been checking her phone for the time - its a habit of hers to do this, or to ask people the time. I was sitting next to her and I didn't notice it.

There was an empty seat to her other side between her and a woman. The woman suddenly boomed out in the middle of the film, "If you want to play your phone, you can go outside and do it instead of in here".

It was mortifying, and she interrupted the film for me. I was really embarrassed for my friend, but we didn't say anything.

At the end of the film, as we were standing up to leave, I said to the woman "I don't really care if you were disturbed by a light during the film or not, I don't want to have to the film interrupted by your booming voice". She then started arguing back (she said something like "Oh you'd like to be a cheeky one, wouldn't you, and some other stuff) but we turned our backs towards her and her husband so that she was talking to ourselves, put on our coats and left.

Kind of ruined the film for both of us. Normally I find going to the cinema relaxing!

*contender even

We go fairly regularly, mostly to children's showings.

The last time was to kids club showing of Despicable Me 2 and there were several parents on phones, one right at the front of the room very obviously checking her Facebook page for the length of the film. Others either repeatedly checking for something or texting.

The time before that was to a regular showing of a children's film and we had a similar experience, lots of phones lit up, some for prolonged amounts of time, lots of parents tapping away.

And the time before that was a rare night out for me and DH to a 'proper film that wasn't animated. A group of eight people sat down in the row behind us, then moved to another row, then moved again, then finally settled in the front row. Then they all started texting, one made a call, two of them took photo's of the others, phones were passed up and down the row so they could all look at things someone else had put on Facebook.

One man asked them to stop and was told to fuck off. Several people left the screen to complain and finally the manager came in to ask them to leave. As they were leaving one of the group shouted "I paid five fucking pounds for some bastard to get me thrown out!" and several people clapped.

There has been so much crap written on this thread, I think it could be an early 2014 classics contestant

I would bloody hope so. How difficult can it be? 34 pages on cinema etiquette?!

LessMissAbs - just because you didn't find your friend's behaviour very distracting, doesn't mean that the woman who spoke to you didn't find it distracting.

That was truly vile Sarah. I can see now why you advocate leaving friends at home. My friend is honestly very nice.

I would bloody hope so. How difficult can it be? 34 pages on cinema etiquette?!

It will be my specialist subject when I appear on Mastermind

All this is making me want to go and see a proper film and see the shenanigans with my own eyes.

On the back of this thread I have asked a number of people known to me today if someone taking a brief look at a phone in a cinema would bother them? Not one person said it would, in fact they were all a bit by the question "no, why would it?" seemed to be the favoured response.

To be fair, I am an offender myself. A woman at a small cinema in Morningside in Edinburgh once told me I was chewing my sweets too loudly.

My mouth was full at the time, so I held open the bag to her by way of apology.

sparklysilver I do that often after reading some threads on here. Strangely enough no one ever agrees with the general MN consensus. I'm clearly living in some kind of parallel universe

So the women who told you and your friend off is a racist now. Wow, OP, making up stuff like this is making you sound increasingly desperate!

I can sense your mounting excitement Whistleblower.

Same reaction from my friends Sparkling. Although they were surprised to learn that they were all a bunch of cunts and idiots.

Hmm. My straw poll agreed with Mumsnet consensus.

I've asked before but I will try again, op, when you started this thread was there any part of you that was willing to consider that you may not have been entirely reasonable??

there's only about 160 posts left to sort this out. Unless we are having Thread 2.

I will answer you NewBeginnings (lets hope that isn't prescient of a Thread 2) if you tell me what was a person in my position, minding their own business, sitting watching a film, meant to do when said film is interrupted by a loud bawling woman starting an argument with another cinema goer?

How do you know that bawling woman (Brian) isn't such a bad tempered bloody cow that she spreads misery wherever she bawls?

Why didn't you bawl at them and tell them to play with their phones outside Maryz?

Ok I see your half response to my question doesn't really answer my question though

'I do believe the answer is that some people (insert rude words here) interpret the advert at the cinema with the disturbing ringtone to mean that you either switch your phone off OR switch it onto silent mode. That would explain the number of people using their phones in the average cinema but the lack of ringtones.

When you are clearly told in the advert to turn your phone off (OFF means OFF its black and white its bloody obvious what they are telling you - how anyone interprets OFF to be anything else is beyond me) and as you stated you have now established for us all in your post that your friend was on her phone as you say 'Very similar to what happened in my OP. Before the phone police intervene, the light was on for less than 15s.'

Therefore the rule is clear and your friend broke the rule - so my question again when it is clear your phone is to be off in the cinema and you friend then uses her phone she is therefore wrong - do you agree? Forget the booming voice from the lady, forget that it doesn't bother you just answer the question please.

..nope, it clearly never crossed her mind, NewBeginings. It's not in the nature of these rude, entitled, self-absorbed types.

You could have ignored her, or your friend could have apologised for causing a disturbance.
Please answer the question op, did you experience any level of self doubt at all or did you start this thread 100% convinced that you were right and seeking validation for that?