I can’t watch movies or read about Alzheimers or other problems with forming new memories, mental illness, or mental retardation. These issues just scare and depress the bejesus out of me. (Though I don’t mind the “classic” amnesia stories of “who am I and what am I doing in this circus?”)
What plots, plot complications, or issues will you absolutely refuse to watch or read, if any?
I don’t “do” Vietnam, so I’ve never seen Apocalypse Now, The Deerhunter, Full Metal Jacket, etc., etc., etc.
I don’t have any absolutes like this, but my wife absolutely refuses to watch anything where children are in danger. It makes her too anxious. Also, she can’t stand watching hidden camera stuff where people are fooled. She is too embarrassed for those people!
Can’t stand anything about child abuse. Never have been able to.
Since my kids were born, I can’t read or watch anything where kids are murdered or severely abused or molested. I had to stop reading Martha Grimes; she just got too graphic in the way she was killing off the kids.
Right now, I don’t like to watch war movies, but that is only because my hubby is in Iraq right now. It makes me too anxious. But I expect when he comes home I won’t have problems watching it.
I don’t care for movies, talk shows, tv shows, or books (or thread topics) with rape as the theme. I do my best to avoid them if I know about it in advance. No big reason except it is just yucky. But other things are yucky too and don’t bother me as bad.
The main television shows I really stay away from are shows where they are trying to find out the baby’s daddy. ugg.
It depends on how it’s presented, but I often get really upset when someone’s spouse/parent/child dies. Yes, that means a whole lotta stuff will potentially upset me. I won’t *refuse * to watch something on those grounds, but there are a number of things I won’t watch a second time. When I watched the Buffy Season 5 DVDs with my husband (whio hadn’t seen them before), I made him watch “The Body” by himself because I’d just end up sobbing through the whole thing.
I wasn’t always like that, but it started after I fell in love with my husband and suddenly everything in life and death just meant more. This has ruined my ability to watch TV and movies like a normal person. I heard Guns ‘N’ Roses’ “November Rain” the other day and started crying because I remembered the video with the wedding/funeral for Stephanie Seymour. I’m sick! Help!
I can’t really watch films about hurting Children or Animals, as they tend to upset me too much to be able to enjoy the film. I love the film ‘Kes’ but just can’t stand to watch it.
I do not do serial-killer-based entertainment.
I’m finding it hard to articulate why. Partly, I’m put off by the fetishism and admiration for the killers. Also, while I don’t mind creative splattering of gore in a science fiction or horror context, whole serial killer genre is generally more realistic and very intense. I’m not actually worried about serial killers in real life, but fiction about them freaks me out more than other types of thrillers.
I can’t watch anything where pets (particularly cats) are injured, and I have a particularly hard time of it if the cat/pet is injured by sadistic louts (rather than, for example, hit by a car). I was traumatized at a very young age by a movie (and it was a kid’s movie, too!) about this little boy who found a kitten and raised it in an abandoned building, and then some local bullies found out about it and either scared it or threw it into the street where it was killed by a car. That kind of thing really gets to me. (Given that I still remember it a good 30+ years later, I guess that’s an understatement!)
I don’t have much problem with watching things where the death is played for laughs, though (like the scene in Jurassic Park 3 where the dog in the doghouse is stepped on by the T-Rex).
For some deep, dark psychological reason that I can’t fathom, I can’t stand to see movies or read books where the main plot point is that someone is framed, and know one believes that he or she is innocent.
I cannot watch anything that contains any sort of bodily mutilation or cannibalism. Blood is fine, general torture, rape, etc. bring it on, but cut off a finger and I’m in the bathroom trying not to vomit. Have a movie like “Alive” where someone is eaten, and I will vomit, plus not sleep that night.
Less graphic but still distressing, I hate to watch anything where a character is getting embarrassed. I feel embarrassed for them.
We’re kind of hyper-sensitive to depictions of suicide and/or falling out of windows. You’d be AMAZED how often this comes up in movies or on TV; often for laughs.
I hate watching people being humiliated, especially when they do it to themselves for money. I hate all Springer-type shows, and think there should be a special place in hell people who humiliate their parents/spouses/S.O.s/siblings on those shows. I don’t even like man-on-the-street-interviews, because the journalists always make people sound stupid. As you can imagine, I haven’t watched much network television in the past few years.
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For some deep, dark psychological reason that I can’t fathom, I can’t stand to see movies or read books where the main plot point is that someone is framed, and know one believes that he or she is innocent.
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I am the same way! Weird.
I am totally repulsed and morally indignant about any footage that shows people dying or getting seriously hurt. I came home when day and found my brother watching “Faces of Death” (or something like that) which showed footage of people actually dying on camera.
I am not usually a prude (by a long shot!) but we all don’t need to see people actually dying or being seriously hurt.
Anything where children or animals are hurt. For some reason I don’t mind big grown up men smacking each other around, though. Sopranos and most of Deadwood were o.k. with me.
Modern horror films. The gore is boring, and there’s nothing easier than to make an audence jump:
It’s amazing people haven’t caught on to the trick.
I also don’t generally like comedies where the protagonist acts like a moron. There are exceptions, but generally, I don’t find stupid people funny.
Any film labelled a “Thrill ride.”
I don’t know what it is, but something about the idea of being institutionalized skeeves me out, big time. I’ll watch something with that theme once, but never a second time. I hated the episode of Buffy where she thinks she’s in a mental hospital and just hallucinating being a Slayer, and I react violently whenever anyone suggests that the Buffy in the hospital was the “real” Buffy. I can’t even watch the Simpsons episode where Michael Jackson does a guest voice. Which sucks, 'cause that was a really good episode. But I’m not watching it again. If it comes on, I change the channel.
Humor primarily based on bodily emissions (aka P[sup]3[/sup]: ‘peepee, poopoo, pee-yoo!’)
Rape
TV series “Very Special” episodes (especially the annual Christmasy ‘Scrooge-y character redeemed in 2 hours’)
Anything where teachers are the brunt of the joke (especially ones starring a “Ferris Bueller”-style smart-assed kid - taught too many of those who tried to copy the attitude, but lacked the charm)
Jerry Springer
Jerry Springer
Jerry Springer
Jerry Springer
Jerry Springer
Jerry Springer
Jerry Springer
Jerry Springer
Jerry Springer
Jerry Springer
Jerry Springer
Anything with a tinge of Jerry Springerness to it (more bleeped-out silence than actual audio)
Any movie featuring two stoned-out dudes who can’t remember where they parked their car last night.
Anything featuring a talking baby.
Anything where Ben Affleck is the star. (Dogma is ok.)