Before you answer, please bear in mind that I’m talking about scenes in movies, television, or theatre which you were able to watch with equanimity earlier in your life, but now find yourself automatically and perhaps unwillingly averting your eyes, or at least being massively displeased at its inclusion in the work. So if you were never able to abide gore, the fact that you can’t stand The Walking Dead doesn’t qualify; but if you used to be able to watch two men kissing but now find it disconcerting, it does.
And to answer my own question:
Neck attacks. If a character is about to have his throat slit, or her neck eaten by a zombie, or any other such assault, I have to turn away. I’m not sure why. I’ve always been discomfited by people touching my neck, but up to, oh, 2010, depictions on screen didn’t disturb me. Now I have to look away.
Harm to babies and small children. This one dates back to 1996, when my son died. The reason’s obvious. I just can’t bear it.
Characters being cruel or dismissive to their mothers when the mothers don’t deserve it. This one is marginal, as I don’t feel compelled to look away when it happens. But it instantly erodes and perhaps erases my sympathy for the character. No, that’s not quite right. Sometimes it just makes me feel sorry for the character treating his or her mother badly. I can’t help but think, “One day your mother will be gone, and you will think back on this moment and it will break your heart.”
That’s the one. I didn’t mind seeing fictional kids getting hurt before I had my own, but for the last 23 years or so, it’s been too hard. Guess I’ll never see Cujo or Pet Sematary again.
I actually have more of the opposite - things that would make me turn the show off or change the channel, and now accept. (And not through acceptance of gore, violence, etc.)
But pointless violence to women will do it for me. I’d have to rummage for examples, but more than one movie I watched with equanimity back when now makes me squirm and even turn off when it comes to excessive, unnecessary or prurient intimidation or violence to women.
Can you define “pointless”? I’ll turn away from or fast forward through a rape scene even if it’s integral to the plot, but a badass woman fighting won’t bother even if she’s losing (though I generally want her to win).
I am not the boss of you, of course, but can we please stay on track and discuss only things that you could once stomach but no longer can?
Back in the 70’s, Ron Ely starred in a TV version of Tarzan set in modern times. In one of the most memorable scenes for me, some bad guys in a helicopter were chasing him across the veldt, and they upped the ante by dropping a couple of hand grenades near him. Tarzan found a length of vine, tied the grenades to it, and bolo’d the assembly into the rotor of the chopper.
The resulting “KABOOM” struck me as quite fitting for any group of baddies you’d care to name.
A few years later, a dear friend lost her father when the helicopter he was test piloting for Hughes Aircraft crashed. I heard that the last words he uttered were “Oh, shit.”
Since that time, I can’t bring myself to watch any movie or TV show where the depiction of an aircraft crashing figures prominently. Mostly. I managed to make it through Cast Away.
Lost, OTOH, was disqualified from making my viewing roster.
[ol]
[li]Choking scenes - Funny or serious, I always find them to be unpleasant.[/li][li]Extended misunderstandings - If characters attempt to stretch out a situation that could be resolved by one or the other asking “What do/did you mean by that?” I change the channel.[/li][li]Character not handling a firearm correctly - When I see fingers on triggers or people “teacupping” a semiwutomatic handgun (resting the handgun on the palm of their hand while aiming it) I’m done.[/li][li]“You’re not my Dad!” - Bratty TV kids really piss me off anymore.[/li][li]Women throwing things at a husband or boyfriend - Having been hit in the head with an ashtray by a woman with a bad temper, I no longer find scenes like this be amusing or interesting,[/li][/ol]
Scenes with child or domestic abuse make me flinch. Case in point is one of my favorite films, Goodfellas. That movie is filled to the brim with violent–and often gruesome–gangland murders but the one scene I have to turn away from is when a young Henry gets beaten by his alcoholic father.
Misbehaving children being treated like their actions are cute or acceptable. I once had some tolerance for it if the child was extremely funny, but I’ve lost that. Now I just want the brat to shut up and behave or suffer for it.
Right. Or pets being tortured. Stopsed watching some weird new BBC America show due to that, one of the characters (a little girl) drowned her cat. Something weird about some guy killing odd people, perhaps due to the fact they had “body-hopped”??
I used to be a big Law and Order: SVU fan. At some point they really ramped things up, or I got a little soft. The fact some of their plots were “ripped from the headlines” made it all the more disturbing. I stopped watching.
Loved Criminal Minds early on, but again, it started to unnerve me after a while. Despite liking the characters, I had to bow out.
Oddly enough, I made it through two seasons of the Hannibal TV show, with only a bit of clutching a throw pillow or stuffed animal. But that new Dylan McDermott show, Stalkers? When it opened with a woman getting accosted on the street, then set on fire… Too much.
A really outstanding example of this is Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, the film that turned into the TV show “Alice.”
Her 13yo kid is SO obnoxious and bratty that you want someone to kill him. It was kind of a trope of the early 1970s - let kids act like shithead adults, but they were still insulated from any kind of consequences because they were just a kid. Some of this persists into another film I loathe, E.T.
I’m pretty jaded when it comes to violence. The primary exception is feet – I can’t stand watching anything gross that has to do with feet. Even watching someone clip their toenails squicks me out.
Eyeballs, too. And sometimes fingers. In fact, the last time I had to close my eyes during a movie was Black Swan when Natalie Portman was picking at a hangnail and ended up
stripping nearly all the skin off the back of her hand! :eek:
Mine is close to this: I can no longer bear to watch when a parent is being informed of the death of their child. I accidentally watched such a scene on a “Grey’s Anatomy” episode my wife was watching today, and I know I’ll be replaying it (unpleasantly and involuntarily) in my head for the next several days.
Character actions which are motivated by deliberate stupidity as it’s the only way to advance the plot. I have a hard time watching classics like The Three Stooges anymore as I see what’s coming and just want to yell at the screen. Of course, it’s a feature in many modern movies/TV shows as well, making viewing very frustrating.
Awkward, uncomfortable character interactions in movies. I used to see if I could identify or sympathize with them in some way, but as I age, I usually view them as being needlessly quirky to the point of exclusion from everything they desire. It just makes me angry at the whole thing, so I no longer have any desire to watch. I think the last film I saw line that was Rushmore and now I hate Wes Anderson.
Did you see Mel Gibson’s Payback? There’s a scene where he’s strapped to a chair, barefoot, and someone starts torturing him for info by using a hammer. One toe at a time.
