NO reprisal is too extreme for the subhuman scum who use their bright phones in dark cinemas. Even these punishments are entirely reasonable:
Exile
Banishment from these shores is the soft option. When you’re approaching the climax of Gladiator II, where Paul Mescal is riding two rhinos at Caesar through a coliseum full of sharks while toting twin AK-47s, and some dick gets their illuminated rectangle out? Being shipped to St Helena is absurdly generous. They ruined your immersion in the story.
Being catapulted over the horizon
Forget about the logistics of sourcing and operating a trebuchet. Focus on how joyous it would feel to see them disappear over the horizon in a majestic arc, comparable to the narrative arc of Paddington in Peru. Such a spectacle wouldn’t just restore much-needed order to the nation’s cinemas, it would also bring the community together. There’s literally no downside.
Bringing back the stocks
Like iPods, society turned its back on placing people in stocks far too soon. Public humiliation is the only consequence that gets through to morons who film the ending of Wicked and put it on TikTok. For extra irony, spectators will be encouraged to video themselves throwing rotten fruit and bags of dogshit at them.
Tarring and feathering
Sounds quaint and rural, coating an individual in tar and covering them in feathers? In reality it’s an excruciating punishment, as painful as it is humiliating. Good. Inflicting it on transgressors will return cinemas to revered temples of quiet and darkness. Even a quick scroll during a Sky advert will be stamped out.
Force them into baby-friendly screenings
What could be a more fitting punishment? Having disrupted your screening with their phone, their viewing experience will be ruined by screeching infants who are strangers to reason. For repeat offenders, put them into Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie or Thelma the Unicorn. They’ll never do it again, if they survive.
