I was raised by a movie talker. When I was a child, my dad and I went to our local theater every Wednesday to see whatever was out. If that week’s offering was pure schlock, my dad and I would yuk it up. His humor, complemented by an insider’s perspective afforded to him by a career as a writer and director, was incisive and perfect to me. Like a sidelined quarterback barking at the television on Super Bowl Sunday, he called out narrative inconsistencies or forced plot turns with ease, or pointed out actors’ tics that escaped less practiced eyes.
Though I lacked my dad’s professional elegance and volume control, I mimicked this chatty habit for years — until my buddies and I went to see “Sahara,” the 2005 Breck Eisner movie about treasure hunters searching for a Civil War-era ship in the desert. I was 14, and I considered talking through a movie a thrill and a continuation of a storied legacy. I assumed that my fellow audience members would appreciate my inherent hilarity, which was obviously of greater value than Eisner’s desert tomfoolery.
But halfway into my monologue lampooning the ridiculousness of a purposefully ridiculous movie, a person leaned over and let out a shush, her voice as harsh as the white static from a TV. I burst out laughing. Who was this high and mighty loner seeing “Sahara” at 2 p.m. on a Saturday? I continued talking, and a few minutes later, she tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Some of us actually work hard and pay good money to come to the movies.” My brain squelched with embarrassment, and I slumped into quiet. I became aware, for the first time, that not only was I not the funniest person in the theater; I was also downright annoying to everyone around me.
Ever since, I’ve been a shusher, dedicated to telling people, first politely, then with more ardor, to shut the hell up. I’m shameless. Sometimes gleefully so. Once, I asked a group of drunk dads at a distillery playing the song “Sympathy for the Devil” at impossible decibels on a portable Bose speaker if they could “keep it down,” though I am still unsure if this was an act of public service or just my personal desire to never hear the Rolling Stones again in my entire life.
Shushing was once commonplace, if a little snooty and silly. Now, however, a phone-addicted culture has made us all seemingly oblivious to just how annoying we are in public. Our ways of being annoying have worsened: People take pictures at the cinema, flash on; they watch entire movies on the train without headphones. As selfishness is normalized, calling people out for their bad behavior has become more fraught.
There’s an early episode of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” in which the Gang are shushed at a restaurant for their screeching. This leads the rageful Dennis to file an assault charge against the shusher. “Shushing isn’t assault,” a police officer tells Dennis. Yet some shushees often react like Dennis. I have been called a Karen, a snoop, a jerk and, at a recent screening of a three-and-a-half-hour Oscar-winning movie, a pejorative that cannot be issued in print. All for pointing out that, yes, there are other people around, and they can hear your voice, see the light from your phone.
My reaction to these pushbacks is to play stupid. I pretend I cannot hear the shushee’s insult, first by going, “Huh?” And then, “I’m really sorry, can you say that again?” After repeating their countercomplaint three times, most shushees are thunderstruck by either self-awareness or frustration and call it off.
To me, their indignation is a sign they know they’re in the wrong. My method is a near-foolproof way to embarrass a reactionary shushee, even if it is also a thing that might get me killed one day.
Shushing is not just about quashing the mosquito-buzz irritations of the world around you. It’s about self-respect. To stand up, to feel the sweaty rush and request decency, is to not be a person who just takes it. In a world full of everyday bullies, it’s a way to reclaim a little power. I look back with regret at the times I didn’t shush: Why didn’t I tell the couple next to me at a Young Thug show, arguing about feline care for a rigorous 30 minutes, to please be quiet?
And there is the plain importance of respect for the artist or your fellow patrons. Our tendency to treat art as content, and all space as extensions of our living rooms, has led us to devalue both public space and the art it hosts. Shushing is, at least, a reminder that there is a shared life beyond the couch — one that deserves to be respected.
It’s easy to overstep, however. I wince thinking of the time I told a workaholic friend to put his phone away during a legendarily long and slow movie. I assumed he was “circling back” on some emails. In reality, he had learned that a family friend had been hospitalized right before the movie began and was awaiting news. That was a potent reminder — and a memory that, alongside “Sahara”-gate, will be among the last I revisit before I die — that I know very little about the lives of others. How easy it is to assume.
I have learned to be a little more patient. I give people a couple of minutes of phone use before I barge in; I let a little chitchat slide. I’ve also learned the difference between being a shusher and being a scold. The scold hunts for confrontation, seeking justice, hoping the encounter will impart a life lesson.
The shusher, meanwhile, knows that shushing won’t have a lasting impact. The decency revolution is not coming anytime soon. But in the meantime, a stranger in a theater might appreciate that you’ve tried to protect what little peace we have left in public.
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