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Why is popcorn mandatory at the movies but frowned upon at the opera?

Opinion

September 30, 2023 — 11.00am

September 30, 2023 — 11.00am

When I was in high school, a friend who worked at a big cinema chain in the city told me it made more money from the candy bar than it did from movie tickets. A supermarket can sell a bag of corn kernels for $3.50, and that could make the equivalent of 10 boxes of popcorn. The cinema was selling each box for $12, so the margins were astronomical.

I was ranked last in my grade for year 11 maths, but even I could do those sums.

Popcorn: Irresistible and addictive.

Popcorn: Irresistible and addictive. Credit: DirtyDianaNah

That smell of hot, buttery and salty popcorn is indelibly associated with a couple of hours in a darkened theatre. You whiff it as soon as you’re near the door and it triggers the same Pavlovian response that the barbecue chickens at the front of the supermarket do to your tastebuds.

Sometimes the popcorn’s too salty and your lips are puckered before the ads finish, or it’s stale and you curse the world. But none of that will stop you from reaching for more. You’ll eat it, along with your disappointment.

Another friend of mine likens her popcorn addiction to drugs, alcohol and gambling. No matter the time of the day, she can’t watch a movie without it.

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Popcorn is the ideal spectator snack. It doesn’t have an overwhelming smell, it lacks the discordant crunch of potato chips, and it’s light enough that you tell yourself it won’t end up being your substitute for dinner – even though it inevitably does.

But not everyone agrees. Recently, an argument broke out at London’s venerable Royal Albert Hall during a performance of the opera Dialogues des Carmelites by Francis Poulenc. In that toffiest of toff settings, an American couple became the target of “unbelievable abuse” for daring to – horror of horrors – eat popcorn sold to them by the venue.

The offended party, described as “an angry man” in an article by The Independent, protested – loudly – that they were eating their popcorn too loudly. He kicked one of their chairs. Apparently, the irony of who was being more disruptive was lost on him. The Americans and the man were moved to different seats during the intermission.

As news spread of the great popcorn debacle of the BBC Proms, people took sides – and most of the comments came down against the American popcorn enthusiasts. A classical music critic, Jessica Duchen, implored the Royal Albert Hall to stop selling popcorn, tweeting that it was “noisy, smelly, intrusive and completely inappropriate at a concert, and it causes big fights in the audience, ruining the evening for all around”.

Opera goers agreed popcorn was beneath the artform. But the outcry reveals something more pernicious and snobby than mere irritation at the popcorn masticators. It strikes at the heart of what is considered high art or low art and who gets to participate.

Popcorn has historically been associated with entertainment for the masses. According to Smithsonian magazine, popcorn had become popular at American fairs and circuses by the middle of the 19th century, thanks to the spectacle of the popping. The mobile steam-powered popcorn maker was ubiquitous by the end of the century. But when the first movie theatres opened in the US, owners wouldn’t allow popcorn because they wanted to preserve the so-called decorum of the theatre.

That all changed with the confluence of two events: the invention of the talkies and the Great Depression. Early silent movies required literacy to read the title cards, so only when sound was introduced could the lower socioeconomic classes take in a great story for a few coins. With that expansion of the audience, cash-strapped theatre owners finally allowed popcorn – and the high profit margins staved off bankruptcy for many.

Now, when we think of a “popcorn flick”, it evokes a blockbuster rich in spectacle and scant on gravitas. But a Marvel movie can pack emotional heft. Black Panther meant more to marginalised audiences than any reductive label would suggest.

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And no one reasonably throws a side-eye at someone munching away during a quieter drama such as Moonlight or a heavy historical epic such as 12 Years a Slave. Moviegoers understand there’s a social contract that the cinema is for everyone – just don’t be rude, and popcorn is not rude.

Popcorn connects us to the collective experience of spectatorship, of being inclusive of anyone who wants to share in a storytelling journey. And if popcorn is deemed not only acceptable but intrinsically linked to the movie-going experience, why is it not OK for operas, ballets and classical music concerts?

Why is it OK for attendees of what’s traditionally considered high art – with the inaccessible, exorbitant ticket prices to match – to demand venues such as the Royal Albert Hall stop selling popcorn at its shows? A commenter under Duchen’s post went so far as to suggest musicians threaten to strike until the popcorn madness is put to an end. You could almost hear the Greek chorus of “riff raff!”

If you really loved the artform, you’d want as many people as possible to share in that love, instead of putting up fences to keep people out, demanding they conform to some standard that says more about those making a fuss than those who have “transgressed”. At least no one is throwing peanuts from the rafters anymore.

And, it’s not as if they were pulverising some potato chips. Now, that’s a crime.

Wenlei Ma is a freelance film and TV critic, journalist and broadcaster.

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