Poll: Autistic child asked to leave movie theater- do you agree?

[kasperbbs]

If the kid can't handle sitting quietly in a movie theater then he shouldn't be there in the first place.

 

[The Great JT]

If he was being loud and making it hard for the other patrons to watch/hear the movie, they're totally in the right to ask him to leave.

 

[Erttheking]

I'm impressed, Escapist. The responses in this thread are surprisingly moderate and level headed. I came in here expecting people to be calling for the manager's head, as is often the case in these types of threads. What a nice surprise.

OT: I agree with pretty much everyone here. Just because he's autistic doesn't mean we can't remove him. After all, the other people there paid money that was just as good to be there. It's not fair to them to ruin the experience.

Are unreasonable and dickish responses to be expected here? From what I've seen on these forums, they are, more or less, moderate and articulate, and VERY civilized.

Whatever you do, don't read the comment threads to Critical Miss comic strips.

The Escapist can be a bit schizophrenic. One moment, everyone's in agreement and quietly articulating themselves, and the next moment you have them ripping each other's faces off. If you don't spend too much time here, you'll mostly see good threads like this one.

Do people not like Critical Miss? Or is it more of a problem with what the comic is usually saying? I like it, even though I don't agree with everything that the comic says.

Sometimes the comic makes political commentary...people can get very passionate about the subject. Just search "White Guy Defense Force" and you'll see what I mean.

 

[Vykrel]

a family with a non-autistic child would have been asked to leave if the kid was being disruptive. there shouldnt be any special treatment for anyone. if someone is ruining the movie for everyone else, they have to go.

if your kid, autistic or not, is unable be quiet and courteous at a movie theater, then they shouldnt be brought to one.

 

[Sylocat]

It's no different from banning crying babies. I don't blame the kid for being disabled, just as I don't blame babies for being, well, babies. If they're ruining the experience for other patrons, they should be asked to leave.

 

[Vault101]

what I'm wondering is how much did the kid want to be there? because if he did then yeah it is sad that he got kicked out...but if he can't behave then really kicking him out was totally acceptible

 

[The Lunatic]

Do people not like Critical Miss? Or is it more of a problem with what the comic is usually saying? I like it, even though I don't agree with everything that the comic says.

It occasionally tries to be satirical, doesn't do it well enough, comes across as just plain bad.

As for the thread.

Places have rules. If certain people, regardless of disability can't handle said rules, then I guess that place isn't for them.


Cinemas are private property, they're allowed to have whatever rules they want, really!

 

[Johnny Impact]

A screaming kid is a screaming kid. You do not have the right to trample everyone else's good time because you're too inconsiderate to hire a sitter.

 

[Artina89]

I have to agree with the movie theatre on this one. If the child is adversely affecting other people, whether they are aware of it or not, they have to be removed in my opinion. A lot of cinema's nowadays have children screenings, like a lot of people on this friend have already mentioned, so maybe it would have been better to take him or her to that screening instead. One time actually, an incident similar to this occurred at a film I went to see, and there was an autistic teen there who would intermittently cry out and their parents/guardians had to be asked to take him out, but the staff offered to exchange the ticket they had already paid for and switch it for one of the child friendly screenings, which I thought was perfectly reasonable.

 

[pearcinator]

An autistic child wouldn't be comfortable at all in a movie theatre. Depending on where the child is on the spectrum it could have been really distressing for him sitting amongst strangers in a dark room watching a screen. They can't just focus on one thing at a time and 'block out' everything else. Definitely not the environment you should take an autistic child to.

 

[Samurai Silhouette]

If they were a distraction, good. I'd treat an autistic child the same way I'd treat a loud person playing with their cell phone, or someone with a crying baby. They don't get a free ticket to ruin the experience for everyone else because they're autistic.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

The theater absolutely did the right thing here. Disability or no, everyone else in that theater paid money to watch a movie, not listen to a kid scream or cry (or whatever the kid in question was doing) the entire time.

To be blunt, this is the reason I basically only go to Alamo Drafthouse (and to a lesser extent, Movie Tavern) nowadays. Movie theaters have gotten so terrible about enforcing noise regulations it's almost a joke. People bring their babies into loud PG-13 and R rated action movies and then won't leave the theater when they start crying, come in drunk, talk on their cell phones, etc. and if you tell the management they won't even do anything half the time.

So basically, please everyone in the US go to Alamo Drafthouse to make sure that company stays alive, because they're awesome.

 

[Amaror]

If i found the right article then asking them to leave the theater was entirely justified.
The Article was even written to be sympathetic towards the mother, but she was just plain ignorant of other people.
The son started being loud the second the previews started and the mother didn't leave until after the actual movie started. That's about half an hour of a loud child grinding on the nerves of the movie goers, who paid a lot of money to watch a movie in quiet.
She even mentions that people politely asked her to quiet her son down or leave and she basically said that he was autistic and ignored their pleas.