Movie theaters are sacred places. They are temples where people who love stories go to sit and get away from the stress of life for two hours at a time. Given the level of respect that true film aficionados pay to their local cinemas, one can logically assume that they do not like interruptions in the middle of a movie that they paid good money to see. Sadly, it seems that fellow moviegoers do not always pay them that courtesy, as one woman recently had to contend with a man masturbating in her theater during a screening of The Emoji Movie last week, and police are still looking for him.
Yes, it is bizarre as it looks at first glance. According to a report from PIX 11 in New York, a New Jersey woman was sitting in a showing of The Emoji Movie with a group of kids when she noticed a man sitting in the back of the theater. Why did this man catch her eye, you ask? As it turns out, he had his pants unbuttoned with his hand in a place that it definitely shouldn't have been. The woman eventually complained to the movie theater staff, and the man was escorted out of the theater, but by the time police arrived at the scene he was long gone. As of right now, the man has not been arrested and local authorities are seeking help in their attempt to identify him properly.
Incidents such as these do not happen all of the time, but they are definitely frequent enough to feel familiar. Earlier this year a similar incident occurred when a man in France was arrested for masturbating a screening of Fifty Shades Darker; little did he know he was near a pair of off-duty military police officers when he decided to go for it. A screening of a Fifty Shades movie we can sort of understand (even if we do not condone), but masturbating during a showing of family-friendly The Emoji Movie is an entirely different dimension of weird and crazy that we are neither qualified nor inclined to dive into.
Someone masturbating during a screening of The Emoji Movie probably won't do much to help the growing issue of declining theater attendance. Movie theaters and multiplexes have struggled to keep up with advances in home entertainment over the course of the last few years, and people generally don't seem to go to movies as much anymore. Primary reasons include (but are definitely not limited to) safety concerns, availability of alternative content, as well as increasing prices, but I think we can safely assume that masturbators probably fall somewhere on that list of deterrents as well.
The Emoji Movie is currently in theaters. If you plan on seeing it, please make sure to keep your pants firmly on. After all, it is only fair to those around you.
