Monday, November 26, 2018
Snowflakes and trigger warnings: Shakespearean violence has always upset people
theconversation.com: We are repeatedly told that today’s young people are oversensitive, claiming to need “trigger warnings” and to be traumatised by literary texts – including the works of Shakespeare – that previous generations took in their stride. But is it really true that readers and theatregoers of the past were more emotionally resilient than today’s “snowflake” generation?
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3 comments:
I don’t know if there is anything inherently more sensitive about our generation, because I’ve only lived in this generation and therefore don’t have the authority to speak on the past, however, I do fundamentally disagree with censorship. If you have a problem with the content of a show, pick a different show. In my mind it’s that simple. If you’re doing King Lear but altering the ending as well as some of the major rising actions, aka, changing the plot, then are you really doing King Lear? And how much alteration is “too much?”
Art is supposed to make us uncomfortable, as artists it is our job to create art relevant to the present state of the world and events that are happening, it is also out job to start difficult conversations about those events. If that means doing King Lear, then the violent events of the play are probably important to that message and to remove them would make the play less effective. So once again, if you are disturbed “beyond reason” by the content of a show, or find the content unnecessarily grotesque, choose another show.
I have a lot of problems with this article. First of all, it uses the term “snowflakes” in the title, which is just an immature term that older generations use to refer to “oversensitive young people.” I have a lot of issues with older generations saying, “oh back in my day we used to do so and so and everything was fine!” Yes, maybe it was “fine” then but what was considered to be “fine” even ten years ago is extremely different than what we deem acceptable now, due to progression in society. Racism, rape, abuse, and so on and so forth used to be considered “fine” by many, since it was the norm. If you’re calling younger generations oversensitive because they don’t like to be objectified, violated. And attacked then I think you need to reevaluate your own morals. As someone who has experienced a lot of trauma, I find that trigger warnings on shows are extremely helpful – especially with new works/interpretations. Shakespeare’s works are classic and easy to look up ahead of time if needed, but newer works may not be as easy to predict. I think that people who say that theater is supposed to make you feel uncomfortable, therefore you shouldn’t be warned of what’s coming, may not have experience actual trauma before. There is a big difference between someone who may have racist ideologies seeing a trigger warning for talks of racism and deciding not to see a show (which very rarely occurs, they usually ignore trigger warnings) and someone with, PTSD, let’s say, avoiding seeing Titus Andronicus thanks to a trigger warning, so that they don’t end up having a panic attacks of some sort.
While people have always been sensitive to things, that’s true. However, I still do feel like I have seen an increase in sensitivity over the last few years. People are not just getting offended by things that make them uncomfortable, or things that they don’t like, but also by things that could potentially be offensive to someone else. Now, when it comes to plays and theatre, I don’t believe anything should be censored. The violence, vulgarity, or whatever is written is there for a reason, and changing that could potentially be changing much about the play itself. I’m all for putting trigger warnings and making people aware of the content in the play incase it has the potential of causing mental or emotional damage, since the topics of suicide, violence, sexuality, etc. can be very personal things. However, even so I don’t believe any of it should be cut out or censored, because I think for those people who would not take psychological damage from being exposed to those themes, they should be made to feel uncomfortable or a little upset by the play. It’ll get them talking and could start a conversation about why those things make them upset.
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