An army of umbrellas held too low that blind you on a rainy day. A driver who turns orange before blocking the entire intersection. The marathon “finisher” who feels obliged to give his time to everyone Monday morning at the office. The initial idea is simple: take an interest in these “naughty” little gestures that tickle us every day. To this “feeling of omnipotence which makes us say ‘if I don’t do it, the other will do it, so I might as well do it'”, as described by psychologist Robert Zuili, author of Power of links (Mango ed., September 2023). And which was not helped by Covid-19. “During the pandemic, we were deprived of our freedom. And since then, we have regained the right to do what we want, even if it is never to harm others,” he continues.
These little annoying things, they are legion. And above all, above all, they concern us all. Because in the end, “we are all someone’s nuisance”. Particularly in cinema, our theme of the day.
The annoying fact
Saturday, 8:35 p.m. Before coming, you rewatched all the episodes of the saga. You then called the babysitter, struggled to find a parking space, braved the freezing cold then paid almost 30 euros for your two tickets. Finally, you are here. Snuggled up against each other in your little red cocoon, you will finally be able to discover this blockbuster that you have been waiting for months. The credits begin. You are jubilant. When suddenly you start to hear a noise. A sort of rodent growl coming from your right. You turn your head: three people are staring at you. In their hands, a clearly oversized bucket… filled with popcorn. And shit.
Why is it so annoying?
The continuous moving of hands in the packet of popcorn and the chewing with their mouths wide open exasperates many people. For them, since the arrival of streaming platforms, cinema has become a kind of ceremonial. An intimate and unique moment to connect with your emotions. A face to face meeting between yourself and the giant screen. Then the sound of the grains crunching under your teeth breaks the atmosphere. “The problem is that unlike a ringing telephone or loud laughter, here we know full well that the noise is not going to stop after a few seconds,” rages Jérémy, 35 years old.
This background noise can even spoil the film of the (slightly) obsessive people we interviewed. When a glutton shares their row, they can no longer think of anything else, try to guess where the voracious person is with his bag and pray that he has not taken the XXL jar or worse: the soda and the “slurp” which accompanies it with each aspiration. One of our colleagues, who will not be named, sums up the situation this way: “if you want to be in your underwear, chatting and eating in front of your film, do that at home”. According to him, if everyone is doing it, they might as well cut the sound and just read the subtitles (not excessive at all, our colleague). Ultimately, the best period was perhaps that of post-confinement, when confectionery was persona non grata in theaters.
And the problem is not limited to noise. The sweet scents disgust many people. “This smell is truly disgusting. Frankly, it makes me nauseous,” assures Sylvie, 59, even if it means adding a little more. Finally, last problem, and not the least: crumbs. If men don’t know how to aim when they urinate, they are on par with women when it comes to eating in the dark. We look for its mouth and boom… the popcorn kernel ends up on the ground. At the end of the package, the gray carpet is dotted with small white pieces which will quickly end up crushed. And that’s ugly.
The arguments of the stupid
After playing devil’s advocate over four paragraphs, let’s set the record straight: cinema means popcorn. For people who aren’t happy, there’s Netflix, your couch and your hermit life. For others, cinema is a moment of sharing, of cohesion, of laughter in communion (and, no, we are not going to complain about people who laugh too loudly, that’s life!). In short, living it together. “It’s part of the pleasure of going to the cinema, it’s a bit of a ritual,” confirms Morgane, 31. And then, in reality, the package is often finished at the end of the trailers so those who complain, it’s really complaining for the sake of complaining…” For Maxime, 33 years old, “as with many other things, it’s more a story of good manners than popcorn. »
Because if some make no effort, others take into account the most bitter. After years of experience and hundreds of hours spent at the cinema, respectful Morfals (of which we are obviously part) were able to develop a technique that was as stupid as it was infallible: adapting to the film. Rule number 1: choose in front of which work we can practice our passion. No, The consent is perhaps not very appropriate but The three Musketeers, Please ! Rule number 2: take advantage of the hubbub of certain sequences to stuff yourself and remove your hand from the seal at the first moments of calm. Sometimes, we have to admit, we get tricked and find ourselves having to let the popcorn melt in our mouth. And that’s frankly disgusting.
The final, more pragmatic argument from our colleague from the economics department: confectionery accounts for between 11 and 20% of total cinema revenues in France, according to the operators themselves. Without us, cinemas would simply go out of business (from there to asking you to thank us…)
What Science Says
Well, you know, there are many bad guys (or those who are described as such). According to CNC figures, in 2019, one in three French spectators bought sweets when they went to the cinema, popcorn being their favorite. And scientists have looked into their case. In 2013, researchers at the University of Cologne, Germany, studied the impact of advertising on their brains. They took 96 people to see a movie, fed popcorn for the first half and simple sugar for the second. At the end of the test, the former had retained no memory of the advertisements viewed before the film, while the latter showed “positive psychological responses” to the advertisements. Their conclusion: chewing popcorn would make you insensitive to the effects of advertising. On the other hand, we hope that this does not make us insensitive to the film. It will be a shame…
The infallible trick to make the jerk understand that he is a jerk
Here, everyone has their own technique. Some, well-bred, are boiling from the inside but don’t dare open their mouths. Others don’t say a single word and just roll their eyes. And then, there are some who go for it frankly, going from “oh damn, they have popcorn” whispered very loudly in order to be heard by the gluttons in question, to the very blunt and very simple “shhh”, in passing through a “rooooh” (pronounced gutturally). Others have gone (much) further. In 2011, a 27-year-old Latvian was suspected of having shot a 42-year-old spectator in the head who was making too much noise while eating his popcorn. We hope that the haters will be able to find within themselves the resources to prevent them from reaching this point.