Readers React: Movie theater cellphone schmucks

To the editor: I give up. As David Lazarus reports, a woman insisted on using her smartphone during a movie at the AFI Film Festival and was so enraged when asked by another viewer to turn it off that she sprayed him with mace. (“In an increasingly digital world, where’s the line on common courtesy?,” Nov. 13)

Lazarus is right: Life is too short to be a schmuck.

I too have been told “no” — or worse — when politely asking someone to turn off the bright light during a movie. The theaters should create schmuck seating for those who can’t go two hours without their phones and nonschmuck seating for those of us who are there to appreciate a movie.

Beth Dieckhoff, Fullerton

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To the editor: It’s unfortunate that director Mike Leigh wasn’t in attendance at the Hollywood screening when two moviegoers had an altercation during his new film, “Mr. Turner.”

He could have tapped a woman on the shoulder himself, attempting to convince her to turn off her glowing device. Would she have “seen the light” even then?

Instead, a nameless man got mace in the face. I’d like to purchase him a ticket to sit next to us when we see a biography of the noted “painter of light,” in a respectful audience, each one of us a part, not the whole of it.

Merilyn Britt, San Diego

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