“Ahem, ‘Wicked’ moviegoers,” said IndyStar. “Break out your best pink ensemble. Paint yourself green. But resist the urge to make watching the film adaptation of the Broadway musical a sing-a-long.”
That’s the message from AMC Theatres, anyway. Earlier this week, the cinema chain introduced strict new rules for guests watching the hotly anticipated film. “Silence is golden,” the pre-show advisory video says. “No talking. No texting. No singing. No wailing. No flirting. And absolutely no name-calling. Enjoy the magic of movies.”
‘Sing!’
The policy has reignited long-standing feuds around cinema etiquette and “sparked” a fierce online debate, said The Independent.
While many have taken to social media to “issue a strict edict” to keep quiet at the cinema, not everyone agrees, said The New York Times. Leah Barnes, a self-confessed “theatre kid” from Pennsylvania, told the newspaper she couldn’t wait to sing along to her favourite songs. “People who are just judgemental in that way – please wait to stream it.”
The film’s stars have also spoken up. Cynthia Erivo, who plays Elphaba, told Stay Tuned NBC: “I say, if you come the first time and you sing, sing through. But come a second time and let us sing to you.”
Even Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has weighed in on the debate. At the premiere of the musical adventure film “Moana 2”, in which he reprises the role of Maui, he said fans should “feel free” to participate. “Sing! You’ve paid your hard earned money for a ticket, and you’ve gone into a musical, and you’re into it”, he told the BBC on the red carpet.
‘Deeply embarrassing’
But others are not so patient. Just moments into the first song at a sold-out “Wicked” screening, my “worst fears were realised” when people began singing along, said Eleanor Katelaris in the New York Post. “Look, I get it. It’s a premiere, you’re excited and you want to show your friends you know all the words. Cool. I, too, know all the words.” But “this is communal viewing – not your home or shower”.
What’s astonishing is that people are holding up this type of behaviour as “some kind of fundamental act of self-expression”, said Patrick Lenton in The Guardian. Singing along during a film is “obviously annoying and disrespectful”. Buying a cinema ticket gives you the right to “sit in a chair” and watch the film, not to completely “bypass social conventions”. Above all, it’s “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 and Ariana Grande? “It’s wildly egotistical.”
A special education teacher in Chicago has gone as far as organising a strict ‘no singing’ screening of “Wicked” for 115 people and “banning” her own children – aged five and eight – from attending, said the Daily Mail. “Unless you have a Tony award, no singing will be permitted,” she told friends.
As the debate intensifies, a potential solution emerged this week when more than 1,000 cinemas across North America announced plans to “double up” screenings, to include shows “where every one can sing along”, starting on Christmas Day, said Forbes. “That might put the ‘Wicked’ controversy to rest for good.”