Reading Sense of Boundaries by John McWhorter (via Booker, of course) where he questions the rules of behavior for “civilized” society in public places makes me think of something. Now I ain’t gon’ front, I hate it as much as the next person when somebody’s incessantly talking at the movies, or when they don’t have the good sense to cut off their phone before the movie starts. At the same time, my reaction is a lot more muted than that of many of the commenters on Booker. This is for a couple reasons.
Number one, I recognize that most class-based distinctions are quite arbitrary. It’s not about good and bad, or even ‘ghetto’ and ‘civilized’ as it were. It’s simply a matter of doing things differently. Some rules necessarily have to be the way they are. Some rules just are the way they are and if they were different, there would be no essential change. Thinking legally, it’s the difference between laws against stealing a car and laws about driving on the right-hand side of the road. As McWhorter himself notes, at different points in time, talking and eating during a performance was perfectly acceptable, and in fact, to be expected. The difference between then and now is simply the norms of the in-group. Bearing in mind the inconsequential nature of the issue and the arbitrariness with which the norms are derived, I just don’t see it as that big a deal.
The other reason my opinion is more muted is that we already have the same differences in norms at play in other contexts. Think about churches. Some people prefer that silent, reverential worship environment, while others think a boisterous celebration is more fitting. Again, neither is better, it’s just a matter of preference. What’s out of line is having a preference for one style of church and then going to a church that participates in the other style and complaining about it.
Bearing that in mind, I make my movie and theater decisions based on the picture and the proximity to opening weekend. Well, I also hafta consider the comfort of my date, but when it’s just me, there are times when I actually like to hear the people talking back to the screen. Sometimes I don’t go to the movies just to see that movie, I go for the experience. Cuz for real, I could wait a couple months, until a movie comes out on DVD and have no interruptions at all, if it was just about seeing the work of the director and the actors. Naw, for me, going to the movies is a total experience. I don’t go to the show without buying popcorn, and I don’t go without considering the type of picture and the audience. So put it like this: when I go see Rush Hour 3 next week, I’m fairly expecting to hear some chatter and loud laughing and talking to the screen. That’s part of what makes the experience for me. Now is that what I’d be looking for if I were going to see an artsy picture? Of course not. But if I were going to see an artsy picture that had wide release, I probably wouldn’t hafta worry about that stuff in the first place. In the case of pictures that could conceivably get both a boisterous audience and a shush-em-down audience, I guess it just depends on how my date and I…well, probably more her than me…but suffice it to say that that’s when screen selection and showtime come into play.
While I can kinda understand lamenting the changes in the level of societal formality, and actually do so myself at times, in the end, it’s rather pointless. That’s because in many cases, the rules themselves are pointless. Sometimes it matters, but most times it doesn’t. In those largely insignificant cases, I think the main idea is just to go wherever you’re most comfortable.
One larger issue that I think is significant is the question of the nature of diversity. McWhorter writes, “These people’s sense of boundaries is one I should try my best to accommodate as a matter of ‘diversity,’ I suppose. But their diversity cannot accommodate mine, which is a desire to watch things without the decoration of other people’s conversations, noises, and aromas. That, I think gets to the heart of the problem with a lot of diversity talk, because it seems that diversity can only go in one direction. That is to say that among professional “diversifiers,” it always seems to go from the current or old standard to some newer version, without considering that keeping the old way represents a measure of diversity itself. But I’m gonna fool with that business a little later.
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