SFist Rants: This is What It Sounds Like When Babies Cry
We recently saw Jarhead at the Metreon. One of the things we liked about the movie was that in an effort to help with its kind of discordant, on-the-edge tone, the director subtly added the sound of a crying baby to the soundtrack. It was barely audible and something that didn't particularly have anything to do with the movie, but it was there, submerged in background of the movie, just enough to make us feel tense and annoyed through most of the major scenes. But about halfway through the movie, we began to suspect that maybe the sound of a baby crying wasn't part of the movie. After all, it might make sense for some scenes, like battle scenes, but all the stunt-butt Jake scenes? Or the whacking off Jake scenes? Then it occurred to us-- the baby wasn't part of the movie soundtrack, but part of the movie audience. And all the tenseness and feelings of being on-the-edge weren't because of the movie but because we couldn't believe that somebody brought their friggin newborn to a movie, let alone a movie about Marines, and war, and lots and lots of dead fried people.
While screaming babies in movies hasn't been that big of a problem, we have been noticing it more and more. The worst offender was someone who brought their baby to see Revenge of the Sith on opening night. Here we were, finally watching the ultimate moment of our film watching experience, the movie we've waited thirty years or so to finally see, and we can't get into it because during every moment of stilted expositiory dialogue, some baby kept on crying. And instead of rushing right out of the theater to try and quiet Junior, they sat there, hoping that it was just a momentary thing, not the existential cries of a ten-month old kid recently out of the womb and now being thrown into a big, dark room with the sounds of laser blasts and talking CGI creatures everywhere.
Finally, after several minutes, one of them gave up and took the kid out to quiet them, then brought them back in when they were, only to have the baby proceed with the screaming. Look, we know it's opening night and we know it's a Star Wars flick and we know you were probably as excited about seeing the movie as we were, but if you really wanted to see the movie and not have to deal with getting a babysitter for the kiddy, maybe you should have waited on getting pregnant? He-llo?
Yeah, we know. We don't have kids so we don't know how hard it is. But we have lots of friends who do and we hear from them how much of a hassle just going to the movies is. We know how expensive seeing a movie becomes in terms of having to pay a babysitter. We know how it can kind of suck that you pretty much can't go to the movies for a few years because of too many small children. It would kill us having to, say, miss out on seeing Return of the King in the theater like one of our die-hard Lord of the Rings friends did.
And we swear, we're not trying to turn this into one more issue in the looming "avec enfants" vs. "sans enfant" war that is slowly engulfing the City. In fact, we don't really have problems with screaming babies if we went to see some kiddy flick, like Zarawhateverthehellthenameofthismovieis or Chicken Little. But not in a somewhat intense war flick about the suckiness of not being able to kill anyone. Or in the final movie of the Star Wars saga.
We're sorry to say this, but really, there is no difference between cell phone ringing and crying babies in movie theaters. Well, actually there is. You can turn a phone off; you can't turn a baby off. And it's not like there's no longer options about bringing babies to movies anymore with the Metreon now offering Reel Moms. And obviously there's NetFlix. Not to mention not seeing the movie.
So please, parents, if you gotta see a movie, leave those kids at home.