Movies and Clapping

[Something Amyss]

I used HoH people as an example because I couldn't really think of anything else. But people like me have a hard time watching things when people all around me are shouting or talking, it's difficult to concentrate, and all the other people it would annoy.

You're telling someone who is HoH and has an HoH girlfriend, though, which is exceptionally bad timing. HoH people actually tend to spend a lot of time prepairing, checking compatible movie theaters for captioning or headphone options, etc. My hearing problems even manifest in a difficulty parsing speech from background noise. But hey, you goes to the theater, you takes your chances.

For example, we barely tip our pizza delivery drivers (or tip much at all, really apart from restaurants) apparently some people in America consider this to be terrible?

to be fair, our laws allow us to pay service personnel like shit, so tips are where they make most of their money. Not tipping is basically stiffing the delivery guy their livelihood. I'm aware other cultures don't do this. They have gratuity included or they simply pay their servers well.

Come to the UK and start cheering through a movie and expect a bucket of popcorn rammed up your arse.

That's because you're not as civilised as us. *sips tea*

I think Americans are just happier and more enthusiastic.

Overall, I'd say we're more miserable. Which probably drives us in a much stronger way, anyway.

 

[darlarosa]

Like all things it's mostly cultural and acts as a cultural indicator of enjoyment.

So...yeah thats it. For instance if you go to a comedy movie predominately aimed at African American's in a heavy African American area clapping and laughter is an acceptable part of the cultural experience. I don't participate, and if I do I do "silent claps" to accompany my laughs.

Why do people snap their fingers for poetry?
Why do people in the states yell "boo" for bad things while in other cultures it indicates joy

Watch "Never on a Sunday" it's an old film from 1967 and it kind of explains things in a loose way.

It's all cultural relatives.

 

[Zyst]

If I like a movie I clap at the end regardless of where I am, I've watched movies by myself and found myself clapping at the end and at a movie theatre, if I find the movie very very good I'll clap, I do find clapping in the middle of the movie rude and disruptive though.

Mostly this is because my grandmother is an actress and I've been fortunate enough to go to a ridiculous amounts of Theatrical plays, I found respect in clapping at the end if you enjoy as a homage to the actors and director natural eventually. Of course, this same thing makes me pretty mad at people who clap in them middle of it (specially if they make you miss out on something because you can't hear) but overall I don't think it's that big of a deal?

 

[Olas]

Watching a movie at home: talk, laugh, make noise, clap, make a phone call, whatever.

Watching a movie in a theatre: STFU!!!! I'm not here to hear the noises you assholes make!

Even at the end of a movie I'd rather people not do it, you never know when something extra might start playing during the credits.

 

[klown]

I guess this is cultural. Here in Germany, I have never heard of anyone clapping in the cinema except in very special moments - lets say the room is full of Marvel-Geeks and at the end of the movie Nick Fury comes in. Other than that... well, Rocky Horror Picture Show, I guess, but that is a cult-following built on audience participation. You might hear someone slowly clapping at the end of a movie, if it was a REALLY good flick, or sarcastically, if it was abysmal.

I heard you guys have Twitter-Seats in cinemas now? America's a crazy place.

Also, nowerdays, there are no... whatever you call them, the vendors that walk through the cinema during breaks to sell icecream. Maybe they still exist in larger cities, but I haven't seen one in years.

See that is my problem. I'm from Germany too, and this is a new concept to me, and I haven't ever seen it anywhere else during the movie.

 

[DigitalSushi]

My father stood up and clapped the opera scene from "The Fifth Element", that was embarrassing.

Actually, honestly, I found myself clapping my hands (once) when I was alone this morning, watchin the Avengers for the first time, when Iron Man shows up (not the first time, but avoiding spoilers here in case). It's just...A natural response at this point.

*high five*, I also started clapping and cheering when Iron Man showed up, I had to pause the film when The Hulk finally made an appearance too... he appeals to 8 year old me

I also started whooping whenever I saw Scarlet Johannsons bum too.

 

[repeating integers]

You guys find the weirdest shit to talk about, seriously. This has never crossed my mind, never. Let alone enough to start a thread on it. Am I the strange one or is it you guys?

I only heard about clapping happening in moveis from a review about the new Star Trek, and it bemused me. Before then I didn't consider it once, so I wouldn't say you're the strange one (unless we're gonna talk music tastes).

 

[The_Blue_Rider]

clapping and cheering is always a great moment when Im in a cinema, the only time its ever happened was during that scene with the Hulk in The Avengers. You know the one

 

[manic_depressive13]

I've heard of this happening but I've never encountered such a thing in my life. Where I live people are silent at movies (except for chuckling at funny bits which is instinctive and not a concerted effort to make noise) and when the movie ends they leave. Why clap at a screen? The point of clapping is to applaud the performers. The performers can't hear you when they're on a screen.

 

[Richard Keohane]

People who clap or cheer during movies are not actually human beings. They are pod people, sent here to destroy us, and there is only one way to stop them. Douse them in kerosene, and set them alight.

If you believe that the people on the moving screen can see and hear you, then you are from a alien culture far more advanced than our own, and you have been sent here to harvest organs.

 

[dogenzakaminion]

Well, I like people and I really cannot stand clapping or cheering during a cinema screening. I'm the asshole who shushes a guy for coughing. That being said, it doesn't happen a lot here in Norway. A couple of times at the end of the movie (like at the end of Return of the King) but during is just considered rude. You do have people who deserve the shushing tho.

I sat through Taken 2 with the guy behind me basically running a live stream riff tracks of the film to his buddies. At home, knock yourself out, but in the theater...go f*** yourself.

 

[Whitbane]

If anyone claps during my movie, I shall hate them for the rest of my life. Bad enough they're texting with their phones, but if someone stands up in the middle of the movie and starts slapping their hands together, I will be throwing skittles at them.

The end of the movie? That would still be annoying. Honestly, out of all the movies I've been through in theaters, no one's ever clapped.

Polite Canadians, you're the best.

 

[Deviluk]

From what I've herd, clapping in the cinema is a very American thing. It seems very rare in the UK, but I might have just avoided it due to my natural misanthropic tendencies.

Yeah I've seen movies in the states and it seems more common. Also I live in Berlin, and so go to the english screenings of movies where there are normally a lot of americans, and they also do it here too. One cringe moment was when, the Captain America movie, when he comes over the hill having rescued all the POWs, everyone cheered. I was so embarrassed for them.

Also people laughing too much at parts that aren't that funny. I was just in a full screening of Skyfall and the jokes are not THAT belly-aching, more like tittle tittle, so why was that one guy behind me going HAHAHA, when the villain said something a bit sarcastically.

 

[snagli]

Yech. When Jim Parsons made an appearance in the Muppet movie, when Hulk punched Thor in the Avengers, when just the title screen of Star Wars Episode 3 came up, people clapped and laughed and went nuts for minutes on end, fucking crazy. I actually asked someone afterwards why he was clapping like an idiot. He said that's how he shows his appreciation to the creators. Right, because paying to see the bloody thing isn't good enough...

 

[Rook takes Knight]

People never do it here,fortunately.But I guess I can understand why americans would do such things(JK,I can't)

I'm fine with just watching the movie which cost hundred millions of dollars to make,on the screen without some idiot clapping,or saying unnecessary shit.I'm pretty sure I rather hear what the hundred million dollar movie have to say over you.

 

[snagli]

Yech. When Jim Parsons made an appearance in the Muppet movie, when Hulk punched Thor in the Avengers, when just the title screen of Star Wars Episode 3 came up, people clapped and laughed and went nuts for minutes on end, fucking crazy. I actually asked someone afterwards why he was clapping like an idiot. He said that's how he shows his appreciation to the creators. Right, because paying to see the bloody thing isn't good enough...

Because I have to be a grim downer all the time who hates on every sign of approval or enjoyment beyond the necessary one...

Is it really that far over the heads of people here that some clap after a movie to suggest that the audience as a group enjoyed the movie? It happens a ton in the kind of screenings I attend (we never know what we'll see) and in about every second case where people clap I tend to join because I truly enjoyed the movie and the clapping is the small tip on the social experience that is 'going to the movies'.

And yes, paying is not really enough to show my enjoyment - paying is not enjoyable. I pay for a permission to watch it on a big screen with a group of friends and several other people who might enjoy movies in the same way I do. And if the movie was good and the whole audience enjoyed it then what is so bad about a clap to release all the energy?

I get why people do it, it makes complete sense, I just don't like it when people overdo it. Round of applause after a really good movie? Sure, go ahead. Clapping and cheering and yelling DURING a movie? Please don't. When people cheer for a cameo, the scene doesn't pause for it like a comedy pauses for laughter, it just goes on, and it can get pretty hard to follow when you can't hear it. When 50 people all around me clap, I get distracted and pulled out of the story.

I guess I don't have anything against the clapping itself, just the general "being an obnoxious idiot who shatters my immersion".

 

[Tohru_Readman]

The only time I think clapping is acceptable, is at the end credits. I have actually gone to see quite a few films where this has happened. Usually it's at a film festival or a anniversary screening of a older film.

Lucky for me I have never been to the cinema, where people have start to clap or shout out during the film. That would annoy the hell out of me.

 

[Adept Mechanicus]

That shit ruined the Avengers for me. Every single time a new Avenger was introduced, the audience cheered like it was a sitcom. Not to mention that they even cheered for Loki. Sorry girls, I know Tom Hiddleston opens your floodgates, but you don't cheer for a supervillain when he murders someone.

 

[algalon]

"So I don't like people" seems to be a pretty good indication that no matter what they did, it would've upset you.

If they, y'know, showed that they were enjoying it, that's wrong because reasons. Heaven forbid people be happy at a movie theater.

If they don't, and remained completely still and quiet and emotionless, you'd be on here wondering why they wouldn't show some enjoyment of the entertainment in front of them.

It has nothing to do with not liking people and everything to do with being disruptive. Clapping and cheering during a dramatic or horror movie is about as disruptive as shining a pen laser at the screen. Save it for the end of the movie if you have to clap and cheer. This isn't a play or a sitcom where the actors might pause during big applauses. It's a movie, where there are no breaks in what's happening in front of you. I go to theaters to be enveloped in the movie experience. Having no 3D stereo sound system or 3D HDTV at home, this is the only way I have to experience movies in such a manner, so on the rare occasion that I decide to drive 50 miles to see a movie, I expect a certain amount of decency from the people around me or I will ask for my money back, which btw I've only had to do once.

 

[KissmahArceus]

Folk clapped like crazy at the end of each of the LOTR films, 3 years apart as well. Inverness LOTR fans be crazy.. cannot wait for The Hobbit