Please ignore Ryan Gosling’s terrible advice about phone use in theaters
If you’ve been to movie theaters much in the years since the quarantine, you’ve surely seen some type of pre-show message in which a star appears on screen to thank the audience for seeing their movie the way they do. popular it deserves to be seen: on the big screen. (The funniest instance for me was when a pre-recorded Margot Robbie thanked me for seeing her new movie Babylon with an audience in a busy theater. There were three other people.) The new action comedy The autumn man opens with one of those bumpers, with star Ryan Gosling and director David Leitch joking about how they had you – yeah You – in mind when they made the film, and that they hope you enjoy it. It’s cute, serious and meant to get you excited about the blockbuster you’re about to see.
Except Gosling undermines the entire theater experience by telling the audience that if they do Real If they need to use their phone during the movie, that’s fine. They just have to try to shield them in their jackets while they text or post. No! No!!
Gosling must yield ground in one of the greatest battles of our time: the war over cinema etiquette. Appeasement doesn’t work when you’re dealing with monsters! We can’t give the ‘using phones at the cinema’ class an inch or they’ll go another mile and bathe us all in their hideous, disruptive, distracting glow!
It’s not hard to see where Gosling is coming from with this tactical retreat in theaters’ great War on Phones. He is not only charming, but also realistic and meets the modern theater audience where they increasingly live. Cinemas are struggling to attract audiences, with so many people assuming that they can simply wait a few months and then watch a particular film on streaming from the comfort of their home, phone in hand. When viewers who are used to interacting with a second screen at home go to the movies, they often see nothing wrong with pulling out their phone to quickly answer a text, check the time, or even record parts of a movie . for a well-timed TikTok.
Eight years ago, the AMC theater chain came close to sanctioning phone use during their screenings, but fortunately decided against it. Phone use in theaters has become even more of a hot-button issue since the pandemic, as cinema purists (like me, hello) clash with barbarians people who want to watch films as they are used to at home.
If you consider it an inescapable fact as people start using their phones in a movie theater, as Gosling does in The autumn man‘s pre-show bumper, it makes sense to ask that they at least be discreet with their phone use, rather than just sticking a bright rectangle of light into the open air.
And I will admit that I have occasionally done a surreptitious phone check under the cover of my jacket, and I feel the right amount of shame about this behavior. (My phone is on silent mode, of course.) Real life happens – even in a place where somehow heartbreak feels good. I understand!
But there is a big difference between the very occasional “Is there an emergency?” check and take out your phone to scroll through Facebook or post pictures of the screen to Instagram while you’re in a crowded theater watching a movie that everyone paid for. It should be common sense that if you must When using your phone in a theater, you should be as inconspicuous as possible — or even leave your seat and step outside for a moment if there’s a real emergency that you need to respond to before the credits roll.
But Leitch and Gosling’s take on the usual “put your phones away” PSA turns this common sense exception into the new rule. AMC, Regal and all the major chains have pre-show PSAs telling moviegoers not using their phone during a movie. (Alamo Drafthouse Fortunately, there remains quite hardcore.) But when the public sees it The autumn manthat message will be played along with the film’s A-list star contradicting it and saying it It’s actually okay to take out your phone during a movie, but just be cool about it.
I would love it if everyone was cool about it. But as a society we increasingly lack the ability to be cool to other people. Those of us on team Cinema-Respecters are doing everything we can to hold the line, and Gosling is moving the goalposts. What’s next? “If you have to take a photo, remember to turn off the flash?” “If you need to use FaceTime during the movie, make sure your camera is facing forward so your friend can watch the movie too?” It’s a slippery slope.
I recognize that the war against open phone use in movie theaters is probably a losing battle. But I beg you to ignore Ryan Gosling – at least for Ryan Gosling’s sake. He’s great at it The autumn man, and he and the stunt team worked really hard on it. When you walk into the theater to watch The autumn manwatch the movie and let the other people around you do the same.
Perhaps it’s worth remembering that celebrities who took five minutes to record a friendly message for moviegoers are, in most cases, not in those movie theaters themselves. Margot Robbie had no way of knowing that I was one of the few people who would see me Babylon. (Too bad, because it’s a masterpiece.) And Ryan Gosling probably won’t be in a matinee performance dealing with the cell phone light pollution he tacitly encourages. Until he’s sitting next to us in the movie theater and suffering through all the distractions he just said were basically okay, I don’t think we should take his advice on this.
And if he is If he’s sitting next to us in a theater, he better not be on his phone.