October 13, 2023 wasn’t viewed as an unlucky day for fans of multi-Grammy award winning artist Taylor Swift, especially for those unable to go to one of Taylor Swift’s most exciting tours happening all around the world, the Eras Tour. The sold out tour guided fans through the journey of Taylor Swift’s music path throughout the years. Fans were given the opportunity to have the same experience of the tour through the Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour movie released on the day of October 13. Although many think the creation of this movie was a great idea, there is one debate going on: How should the audience behave during the movie?
There are two kinds of people in this argument. The first kind is the type of person that wants to make the most of everything by singing and dancing, and the second kind is the type of person that wants to make the most of everything by sinking in the experience silently. Social media is the number one place to see these two kinds of people.
On the popular social media app TikTok, you have most likely seen a video recorded of the movie when people are standing up closer to the screen, jumping up and down with their phone flashlight on, and screaming lyrics. Many may question what would be wrong about this, considering it’s a recording of just the concert, but the comment section under these videos are able to answer this question.
Comments state the point that a movie theater was not the place to act like that. People argued that they just want to hear Taylor Swift sing and their view is blocked by people standing and dancing at the front. Many believed that if people wanted to act like that, they should have just gone to the concert or followed movie theater etiquette.
Those who opposed this opinion stated that it is very difficult to get tickets to the concert while thousands of other fans fought for the same seats, in addition to the high prices ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars. Being able to recreate the concert experience would make up for the inability to go to the actual concert, which many big fans of Taylor Swift were grateful for. It is also argued that Taylor Swift had encouraged what was shown in the videos all over social media on her Instagram post announcing the movie, saying “Eras attire, friendship bracelet, singing and dancing are encouraged.” They also make the assumption that Taylor Swift would have wanted people to have fun while watching the movie.
Sameera Singh is a student at Pitman High School who had watched the movie on October 13 and was willing to share her thoughts on the experience.
¨I went to the showing at 6:00 PM at Regal Turlock. The theater was filled with many young kids who would stand up at the front of the theater and dance, singing to Taylor Swift’s popular songs. Unlike a lot of people, this didn’t bother me and I actually preferred it over watching the movie in silence, considering that I wasn’t able to go to the concert. There isn’t a way that everyone could agree to doing one thing, so I feel like the better idea for this would have been to have separate theaters for people who want to sing, scream, and stand up and another one for people to treat as a normal movie.”
After asking other Taylor Swift fans and looking through the internet, you could understand that everybody has very different views on this topic. What do you think? Should fans be standing and singing or sitting in silence during the movie?