In shocking news for grumpy people who like to stay home, fans are going to public screenings of the movie-musical Wicked and choosing to sing along loudly with the songs. It’s happened so frequently that cinemas in the US have put up PSAs asking audience members to keep quiet.
It’s not a new story – theatres, concerts and cinemas have always been battlegrounds of etiquette. During a midday screening of Call Me By Your Name that I once attended, two middle-aged women pulled out an entire roast chicken and began eating it with their bare hands, interrupting a tender scene of queer romance in the Italian countryside with cracks, rips and slurps. Our issues today – people singing in movies, kids filming entire concerts on their phones, people throwing hard objects at singers – are just modern-day versions of conundrums like, I don’t know, when is it polite to throw rotten tomatoes and jeer during a public hanging? Put more than two people together and someone will be annoying – it’s true of audiences, communes, and also why I don’t truck with polyamory.
Singing during movies is obviously annoying and disrespectful both to the people around you and to the performers themselves (not that they know), but what’s been surprising is the fact that people are defending this as some kind of fundamental act of self-expression. Even Dwayne Johnson, who is reprising the role of Maui in Moana 2, has chimed in: “Sing! You’ve paid your hard earned money for a ticket, and you’ve gone into a musical, and you’re into it. Sing.”
But that’s not how it works! That’s not how anything works, Mr Rock. That’s like saying that because you’ve bought a book, you can legally throw it at a passing cyclist, or that because you’ve paid for a meal in a fancy restaurant, you’re allowed to defecate right where you sit. Paying for a movie ticket means you have bought the right to watch a film and to sit in a chair, at best. You’re not allowed to bypass social conventions – your ticket does not trump the rights of another ticket holder who wants to actually see and hear the film that they have paid for. If you must, buy a ticket to an actual sing-along screening, or do it in the comfort of your own home – streaming, after all, exists.
But more importantly, it should be deeply embarrassing to inflict your voice without consent on the public. Who do you think you are to compete with the trained musical prowess of Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, and disrespect the beautiful thighs and voice of Jonathan Bailey? What makes these people think that they are doing anything other than showing themselves to be lacklustre, discordant, substandard imitations? It’s wildly egotistical. It demonstrates all the pride of a toddler concentrating really hard to give you a clenched fist full of cat litter.
The urge to sing, unwanted, in public like this is giving “frustrated musical theatre kid who never got their break and must now resort to forcing their cracked warblings on disappointed strangers”. There’s an outlet for that already, and it’s called community theatre. Not only is it annoying to have to listen to amateurs sing in public, it’s also deeply sad. I don’t go to the movies to experience a bunch of people who refuse to acknowledge that they haven’t, and will never, make it as an artist. I already do improv comedy! Even buskers have more dignity; at least they’re doing it for coins or to get scouted for The Voice.
Unfortunately, these are exactly the kinds of people for whom embarrassment is no deterrent. Threatening a musical theatre kid with shame is like trying to scare away a bear by throwing big loops of sausages at it: pointless, and you’re really only making them stronger.
Perhaps the only answer to this antisocial behaviour is not to get all angry and upset – but rather to laugh (and laugh some more) and point at how cringe it is. Sure, these people still get attention, and it probably won’t stop them – but at least the audience gets to experience the joy of being able to mock someone in a public spectacle. Maybe we can even bring back tomatoes.
Patrick Lenton is a writer. His romcom, In Spite of Everything, comes out in May 2025
