"This is just a reflection of the attitude from the "top" (paraphrased): I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and get away with it." - Commenter on Washington Post article forum
As the orange scum Trump faces a possible fourth indictment in Georgia bizarre freakouts of people are occurring all over the country, from movie theaters – in the wake of the ‘Barbenheimer’ cinema phenomenon- to airlines, theaters and concerts. In cinemas, as reported in the WaPo today, loud talking, disruptive entering-and-exiting the theater, cell phone interruptions, bursts of laughter at inappropriate moments and eruptions of deranged behavior. According to the piece:
“Barbenheimer” — the twin release of blockbusters “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” — may have broken box office records and brought people out to the theaters in droves, but it also highlighted a very real problem: Some people seem to have forgotten how to go to the movies, with widespread reports of drunken outbursts, rampant cellphone use and exhibitionism.
The latter referencing some nitwit (likely a Trumper) who believed he could go naked while watching "Barbie" at a Regal cinema in downtown Denver. Five security guards had to remove the yahoo, and in the process wrecking the showing for a mom and her teen daughters who missed "the best scene". According to the Post piece:
"Though the man was eventually removed from the packed theater, the mom (Connolly) worried she may have missed the funniest part of Greta Gerwig’s long-anticipated film. “It was the moment that we all were going to start dying laughing. And the security guard was totally ruining our moment."
Hey, I get it. But would you rather your daughters have been exposed to this deluded fruitcake? Oppenheimer showings also weren't free from nutso behavior. As one moviegoer ('X' user @silvergelpen) wrote this weekend to the Post:
“Saw ‘Oppenheimer’ last night in one of the worst behaved crowds I’ve ever been in, multiple camera flashes throughout, people in front of us scrolling TikTok half way thru the film. If you don’t have the attention span for a 3 hour movie don’t leave the house to attend one.”
Meanwhile in other cinemas videos taken with flash of scenes were circulated with the potential for TikTok virality.
Tik Tok, indeed, as I noted in an earlier post,
Auburn U. Was Right To Ban Tik Tok
Is perhaps single-handedly responsible for a major cratering in ability to reason, not to mention discerning what is appropriate in public or civic venues. Witness for instance the spate of Tik Tok meme wannabes hurling cellphones, drinks, and other weapons onto concert stages. As noted in the WaPo piece: "The past year has seen a disturbing trend of audience members throwing objects at musicians onstage."
How bad is it really now? According to LA Times movie critic Justin Chang:
"I used to be an avid shusher. Now, I choose my battles because I don’t want to get stabbed in a movie theater."
The mayhem isn’t limited to movie theaters or concerts. On Broadway,
an unruly woman halted a
performance of “Death of a Salesman” back
in December, while a controversial Playbill exposé from
the spring detailed aggression toward ushers and other theater workers, who
reported being spat on and screamed at regularly. Not even the skies are safe:
This week, an American Airlines pilot went viral for
lecturing “selfish and rude” passengers on airplane behavior, announcing : “Nobody wants to
hear your video”.
Roxane
Cohen Silver, a professor of psychology (at UC-Irvine) and an expert on stress and personal trauma quoted in the WaPo piece, asserts this behavior could
be linked to a string of recent events. In her expert opinion:
“It is clear that the past three years have been challenging for
many people in our country. We have experienced a series of collective traumas,
cascading one to the next, which for many has been almost too much
to bear. The combination of the pandemic, inflation, mass shootings,
climate-related disasters, political polarization and so on, has taxed our
capacity to cope,”
But my tenured
psychology prof niece Shayl isn’t buying it, attributing nearly all the descent to brash incivility to the deranged psychopath and sociopath Trump. As she put it:
“Civility in this country has been in a downward spiral since Trump got on the political stage back in 2015. His classless, disparaging actions and outbursts have had the effect of infecting people’s minds and actions and long before the pandemic. It’s given them license to act out in unseemly and extreme ways and the pandemic simply acted as an accelerant.”
Which is
why, she agrees with me, Trump needs to be locked up (previous post) until his trial dates for
his own good and the nation’s own. His wanton social media blasts (and threats,
for example, are simply inciting his goons to more and more bad behavior and
paving the way for further societal collapse. In her words:
“The time now is to nip it in the bud which is why I hope Judge Tonya Chutkan imposes a total gag order on him with the threat of jail if he doesn’t comply. Free speech doesn’t apply, whether his supporters see that or not."
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