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AIBU?

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Original poster

To wish people could sit through a film without stuffing their faces

183 replies

user1485342611 · 29/01/2018 14:34

No problem with people having a bar of chocolate, or quietly eating some popcorn. But people who spend half the film guzzling and slurping and chewing and munching and rustling through paper bags and stinking the place out with greasy hot dogs and stinking nachos drive me mad.

AIBU and trying to deprive people of the full 'cinema experience'?

OP posts:
manicinsomniac · 29/01/2018 21:05

I don't think you can call people selfish for eating hot, smelly food in a cinema if the hot, smelly food has been sold by the cinema for the purpose of eating during the film. You can dislike it as much as you like (and I do) but it isn't rude, antisocial behaviour. They're doing as is expected so it's up to those who hate it to make their own adjustments (be that moving, staying at home or putting a clothes peg on their nose!)

I don't know if it's intentional or not but I think it's really awful and judgemental that mumsnet posters describe unhealthy snack foods as being 'troughed, guzzled, stuffed, slurped, munched, filled the face' instead of just 'eaten'! I've never heard anyone accused of 'troughing a salad' or 'stuffing their faces with wholemeal chicken wraps'. It's language reserved for junk food and it's really snobby and self righteous.

I realise I'm likely to be hugely oversensitive on topics like this but I have anorexia and I would love to think that one day I will sit in a cinema, relax and 'trough' popcorn or 'stuff my face' with pick n mix instead of sipping sadly on my can of diet coke. In all likelihood I never will but the thought of being judged in language like that for doing so makes it even more unlikely. Most people go to the cinema once or twice in a year - I don't think enjoying some unhealthy cinema snacks is causing the obesity crisis! We need to relax about food and enjoy what we want when we want it in moderation. People are allowed to enjoy their food, whatever is contained in it.

Peartree17 · 29/01/2018 22:07

Skow, I lurve that film!

Peartree17 · 29/01/2018 22:12

But, manic, speaking as someone who does buy salted popcorn (in the small carton, and a mini if I can find it) at the cinema, it is the kind of food that is troughed and guzzled. It's designed to hit the dopamine centres in your brain to make you do just that. That is why I buy the small cartons - I would continue eating until it was all done, no matter what size the carton. Fast food is designed to make you do that - KFC is a cunning combination of salt, sugar and fat to keep you eating, eating, eating. Not snobby and self-righteous, sadly, just industrially-designed fact.

Pud2 · 29/01/2018 22:24

Couldn’t agree with you more OP. Drives me nuts and I don’t understand the need to eat throughout a film. Maybe it’s because we were never allowed to have popcorn or sweets in the cinema when we were children. I guess it becomes habitual if it’s what you’re used to. Just keep the noise down!!

BackforGood · 29/01/2018 22:41

I don't find people eating disgusting, I find people eating food noisily in an area where the point is to watch and listen to something incredibly annoying. You cannot compare a restaurant with a cinema, you go to a restaurant to eat food, you go to a cinema to watch a film.

As an aside, I also hate it when they have a TV screen by the side of the table in a restaurant Grin

Biffsboys · 29/01/2018 23:06

This is the reason I wait until the film has been in cinema for a few weeks. Always much quieter and I always book an aisle seat 🙈

petbear · 29/01/2018 23:18

Not to mention the people who can't find their packet of rolos. Are they at the bottom of the Tesco bag? No. Did I put them in my handbag? No. Maybe they're in the pocket of my jacket? No. I'll just try the Tesco bag again. Oh here they are, right underneath everything else, oh dear they've moved, they were definitely underneath that packet of pasta, I'll just burrow some more.......

LOL that made me laugh. Grin

What it boils down to is some people are pig ignorant, with no emotional intelligence, and a self-important 'entitled' attitude. As long as THEY are OK, fuck everyone else.

Same sort of people who turn up late, who don't answer texts, who don't answer invitations, who think nothing of not turning up when someone has arranged to meet them, who drive up someone's arse on the road to try and rush them along, and who play loud music in their house, etc etc..... (but who go batshit if someone does it to them...)

Life's cunts.

RedDogsBeg · 29/01/2018 23:37

The problem is manic that the descriptions are valid because that is how they are being consumed, rustle, chomp, slurp and crunch. I wish they didn't serve that kind of food in the cinema, also can't fathom why anyone would fork out the extortionate price for it.

Biglettuce · 29/01/2018 23:57

Yes agree, although I take a lot to munch but I do it quietly...

The young couple in these big recliner seats who were sharing one and practically making out while I was with my kids though...

My ex DP told someone to ‘shut the f**k up’ in the cinema once. Strangely I was actually quite proud of him!

manicinsomniac · 30/01/2018 00:07

That's a good point Peartree but I still think there's a judgement implied in the use of language.

The problem is manic that the descriptions are valid because that is how they are being consumed, rustle, chomp, slurp and crunch

I could accept that if those were the only words used but you've picked the mild, informative end of the vocabulary.
Using 'trough' is particularly grim - vile image of pigs with their heads in their food. 'Guzzle' and 'stuff/fill their faces' aren't much better. It turns a perfectly normal act of eating relatively normal food in a normal location into some inhuman, disgusting act.

Skowvegas · 30/01/2018 01:25

Skow, I lurve that film!

I admit, it wasn't that bad Smile

Skowvegas · 30/01/2018 01:27

It's interesting reading this.

I hate it when people talk or use phones through movies.

I don't really notice eating sounds or food smells so it'd never occurred to me that it might bother others. I love nachos and cheese during a movie but I don't need it.

Will think twice before I order it next time.

LemonShark · 30/01/2018 06:22

"Using 'trough' is particularly grim - vile image of pigs with their heads in their food. 'Guzzle' and 'stuff/fill their faces' aren't much better."

I think a lot of these words aren't necessarily related to the type of food, but the quantities. I would use trough with a bag of raisins if I was eating a vast quantity of them. And the huge boxes of popcorn and family sized bags of sweets and crisps do bring to mind a pig in a trough, it's basically getting as much food in you as you can as quick as you can instead of normal portion sizes! Plus the huge cartons they use full of popcorn and the constant hand to mouth action used to get it from carton to face do bring to mind an animal eating from a trough. It's not a judgment on the food. It's a judgment on the manner of eating (quick and dirty) and quantity of food being eaten. Because compared to our usual way of eating in this culture, plate and knife and fork, it does look animalistic to be eating lots of food mindlessly and quickly. I really don't think it's much deeper than that.

Guzzle, again, quantities. I guzzle water when I'm drinking 2 litres inside an hour. People use guzzle because of the size of the huge drinks they serve in the cinema. Not because it's coke or whatever. People would say guzzle for Diet Coke.

I see the point you're trying to make but respectfully I think that as the area of food is so fraught for you, you may be reading more into this than is actually there.

Also I stuffed my face with celery yesterday, because I was so hungry I literally quickly stuffed loads in instead of taking a bit at a time, chewing and swallowing 😂

HoppingPavlova · 30/01/2018 06:32

Do you not have cinemas with the reclining seats, table and wait service? Lots of smells as everyone’s food comes out and is delivered to them during the movie, everything from hot chips, nachos, burgers, fish and chips, 1001 tapas style plates etc. And the alcohol! Yummy cocktails. To be fair you don’t get rustling of chip packets but you do get clanking of cutlery, plates being arranged etc.

LemonShark · 30/01/2018 06:34

What!? That's a restaurant! I'd be livid if my watching a film at cinema (which isn't cheap) involved being around people being served food, wtf

SilverdaleGlen · 30/01/2018 06:36

@Stormwhale were you in the same showing as me last week? Great snorty snores throughout the arse!

YouTheCat · 30/01/2018 07:18

If I wanted a cinema experience with a restaurant, then that would be ideal. However, I wouldn't choose to go to that kind of place as it's not what I'm after. I just want to watch a new film in relative peace. I wouldn't go to a cinema/restaurant and then complain about people eating though.

We often go to the cinema straight from work, so we are quite hungry. I'd still wait until I got home to eat though. I don't want to shovel 1000 calories of plastic cheese-coated nachos down my neck.

SharonMott · 30/01/2018 08:17

The thing is that any cinema is going to try and maximise it's profits by selling food and people are sheep. Sheep people just do what is expected of them and stuff their grid throughout the film. If only people could collectively think for themselves and decide to NOT eat for once and just enjoy the film. You can eat at home and make as much racket as you want. Just because someone is willing to sell you noisy foul smelling food, doesn't mean you have to buy it.
If it was a quarter of sherbet lemons in a (silent) paper bag, fair enough but being around people en masse nowadays is unpleasant IMO. In general people have to be eating and drinking constantly for some reason.

dingdongdigeridoo · 30/01/2018 11:35

I went to the cinema in the US and they had a Pizza Hut in the lobby, with people taking boxes into the movie. It was pretty gross, as the space feels much more enclosed than a restaurant, so the smells are more pungent. Plus, who wants to eat pizza in the dark? I can imagine it leaves a greasy mess.

Not sure how these cinemas work that serve full dinners and cocktails. It must be a distraction.

MrsPreston11 · 30/01/2018 11:39

Honestly I find films so loud now that I don't really hear anyone else.

Although maybe you won't like us at the cinema. My 4yo basically snacks the whole film. We saw Coco last week and she managed to drink all of (my) water, had a cereal bar, crisps, and apple and the mini bag of haribo I packed as her cinema treat.

It does mean I can watch the film in peace though (other than the toilet trip needed after she drank all my water....)

If any of you haven't seen Coco go and see it. Wonderful film.

HoppingPavlova · 30/01/2018 11:40

??? I thought these were everywhere????? They are in Australia. You can chose the cattle class section with cheap tix where you are elbow to elbow in seats like cinemas have always been OR you can pay more for

sinceyouask · 30/01/2018 11:43

Phone use in the cinema is bad and wrong and should be punishable by death a significant length of ban from said cinema, but it's a bit joyless to want people not to eat and drink at the pictures. And tbh the last few times I went, the film was so loud I would have struggled to hear anything over it anyway.

Chocolatesprinkledcrumpet · 30/01/2018 11:47

Talk about encouraging oral fixations... I'm talking Freud here, before anyone starts clutching pearls.

HoppingPavlova · 30/01/2018 11:48

No idea why it posted in middle of typing ....
Can pay more for section where your cinema room has 40 odd seats spread in pairs over the space of the room. The seats are huge reclining armchair style where you put your feet up and they have a table between them. You pre-order food/drinks and the waiters deliver it like ninjas at points during the movie. Seriously, you virtually don’t notice the waiters- MUCH less disruptive than someone in your row or a row around you deciding they need to get up to go to the loo in a standard cinema setting! Upsides are no popcorn smell, no rustling ng of bags but that’s traded off by smell of ‘normal meals’ but they don’t smell it’s like sitting in a restaurant and having food on other diners tables, doesn’t tend to stink. Plus a cinema of 40 odd people eating and having wine/beer/cocktails as opposed to a few hundred people eating and crunching ice around in mega-cups.

noeffingidea · 30/01/2018 11:48

See MrsPreston , (and not having a dig at you personally) I don't see the need to snack during a film at all. After all, they only last a couple of hours or so.What I used to do is give them something to eat before we went out, gone to the cinema, then maybe taken them for a drink/meal afterwards for their treat, if we could afford it of course. Perhaps it's just because I'm older but I don't associate eating and drinking with going to the cinema at all, and certainly never during the film.