Donald Clarke: Are cinema chatterers the ultimate movie villains?

There are a few certain ways of accumulating friends when writing in a newspaper. Complaining about litter is one. The Irish Times letters page is conspicuously free of people advertising their right to scatter used nappies about rural hedgerows.

Another sure winner is the piece that notes how cinemagoers increasingly behave like farmyard animals. That’s not fair. Farmyard animals would know better than to watch YouTube videos of cats in sombreros during the latest Super-Something epic. Anyway, let me shout “boo” at these blathering sociopaths and sit back to soak up the deserved acclaim.

There's always some story around to demonstrate the public's distaste for misbehaviour in the movie theatre. Two will suffice to justify the current rant. Earlier this month, Empire, a UK cinema chain, announced the results of a poll to discover what most annoyed its patrons when attending a screening.

Sixty-seven per cent mentioned loud talking. Forty-nine per cent complained about mobile phone use. Heck, only 37 per cent voted for the Tories in the 2015 general election. It’s a landslide.

Meanwhile, something odd was happening in the US. In an interview with Variety magazine, Adam Aron, head of AMC Entertainment, suggested that his cinema chain might consider allowing texting in certain screenings. "You can't tell a 22-year-old to turn off their cellphone. That's not how they live their life," he said.

Within minutes the media – both social and mainstream – was alive with people declaring Mr Aron a menace to all that is decent. AMC issued a Tweet clarifying that there "will be NO TEXTING ALLOWED in any of the auditoriums at AMC Theatres." I read it during a screening of Batman V Superman. Ha ha! Just my little joke there.

It goes without saying that all this poking at mobile phones is a relatively new phenomenon. The incessant chattering has been going on a bit longer. How can I express this without using temporal relativism better suited to the work of Philip K Dick? People began talking too much when you, the reader – whatever age you may be – passed from unconcerned childhood to easily annoyed late adolescence.

If you were born in the 1930s it can be blamed on the rise of television. If you were born in the 1960s it can be blamed on the rise of home video. If you were born in the 1980s it can be blamed on the rise of the internet. Each of those things, in three parallel universes, turned well-behaved, attentive moviegoers into yelling, squabbling barbarians.

The talkers come in different categories. There are those idiots who, as if providing commentary for the blind, speak everything they see on screen. They say “Paris, 1942” when those words appear on screen. They say “he’s getting on the aeroplane” when the hero gets on an aeroplane.

There are those who ask pointless questions out loud. "What's 'Rosebud'? Why did he say 'Rosebud'?" they might drone during Citizen Kane. Shut up, shut up, shut up! Herman Mankiewicz and Orson Welles will tell you what Rosebud means when they're ready, but you'll probably miss the explanation because you'll be saying: "What's he doing with that sledge? Why's he opening that furnace?"

Then there are those who just continue everyday conversation as if they’ve accidentally walked into the auditorium between feeding the ducks in the park and squeezing the fruit in Tesco. “Remind me to get the dog’s canker ointment before we call into Sally’s.” That’s the sort of thing they say.

You will all have been put in the impossible position of not knowing how to respond to a chatterer. Say nothing and you will be disturbed throughout the film. Ask them to be quiet and you introduce a tension into the auditorium that can prove almost as distracting as the original conversation.

We are all, however, agreed that the cinema conversationalist is an appalling person who deserves endless censure.

So, who are all these people blabbering, texting and watching hamsters in lederhosen? Now and then, when attending a film for the first time with a friend, that person will reveal himself to be a talker. We behave as if we have learnt that our chum habitually drinks his own wee, and quietly erase their name from all contacts.

But nobody ever owns up to approving of such casual misbehaviour. The sociopathic instinct seems to operate entirely from the subconscious. They don’t know they’re doing it.

These poor fatheads need to be outed for their good. Let us set up meetings where they can publicly confess and embark on seven-step programmes. Make them stand in the street holding signs saying: "I phoned the babysitter during Birdman" (or whatever). Set them in stocks.

At least that will keep them out of the cinema. Now, who’s that man in the hat?