# Were you unintentionally traumatized by childhood books or movies? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies, books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [October 31, 2020, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379 "2020-10-31T04:08:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2020, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/61 "2020-11-02T11:16:04Z")
> [@romansperson](#): > > While I’ve never cared for horror movies, anything that’s fanstastical/mystical/magical has never really bothered me because it’s all beyond the scope of reality. Depictions of stuff that could actually happen IRL, though? Oh yeah. > > One really awful thing I remember from my youth was being given _Tess of the D’Urbervilles_ to read when I was about 13. > > All of us at my school in grade 7 were sent to a reading tutor, who assessed our reading skills. Those of us who didn’t need any remedial help were assigned books to read. That one was mine. For anyone who hasn’t read that book and thinks they might want to someday, I’ll spoiler the rest: > > It starts off with the protagonist (Tess) accidently causing the death of her impoverished family’s only horse and her attempt to secure paying work to replace him results in a) massive amounts of sexual harassment, b) her rape and subsequent pregnancy and stillbirth, c) her husband’s rejection of her when he finds out her history, d) her rapist’s continued pursuit of her, who she ends up subjugating herself to because she thinks it will help her house her family, and e) her execution for finally murdering him. > > It took reading _The Grapes of Wrath_ to horrify me that much again. Small wonder that Roman Polanski was, shall we say, compelled to direct [Tess](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080009/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1) in 1979. This is the text used on the one-sheet ( standard-sized movie poster ) for “Tess” 🙂 “She was born into a world where they called it seduction, not rape. What she did would shatter that world forever. She was a poor man’s daughter, an aristocrat’s mistress and a gentleman’s wife. She was Tess, a victim of her own provocative beauty. Columbia Pictures is proud to present a film by Roman Polanski], based on the classic Thomas Hard novel. ‘TESS’. As timely today as the day it was written”. I’d forgotten this one when originally posting. My college housemate Don convinced me to go to a midnight screening of David Lynch’s [Eraserhead](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074486/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1). When the first shot of the infant was on screen I was so upset and nauseated that I left the theater. Despite some cruel ribbing from my housemate, I refused to go back in. We went home. To this day I cannot look at stills or footage of that creature. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2020, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/62 "2020-11-02T13:50:29Z")
> [@needscoffee](#): > > I forgot all about those goddamn Siamese cats from Lady and the Tramp (if you please). I saw it in the theater for my birthday, either 5 or 6 years old. Thanks, mom and dad. Those would be Si and Am, respectively. For me it was the rat fight in the nursery. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUBv.2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanubv.2/32/3260_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUBv.2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUBv.2)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2020, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/63 "2020-11-02T14:59:59Z")
I’ve posted about this before. The commercial for the horror movie _Suspiria_. No scenes from, or even a description of the movie itself. No, it was the back of a woman’s head as she sings a little song. “Roses are red, violets are blue…” . Could have been a shampoo commercial. Until the head turns around and it’s a _skull_. IIRC it was shown in the afternoon, maybe not between cartoons but definitely before the dinner hour on channels that a kid would be watching. Feck me. Seeing it once was enough to make me run out of the room when it came on. I don’t even want to look it up in order to link to it 😳 ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2020, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/64 "2020-11-02T15:39:51Z")
I can remember being terrified by the trailer for the 1979 horror movie _Prophecy_. The movie itself, as I found out later, was a pretty schlocky piece of silliness about a bear mutated by industrial waste. But the trailer was just a series of drawings of a developing fetus, each drawing more obviously monstrous than the last, with a scary voiceover talking about how horrible this creature would be when it was born. Freaked me right out. Every time I went to a movie in those days, I used to pray that _Prophecy_ would not be one of the trailers that they showed. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2020, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/65 "2020-11-02T16:18:58Z")
I remember that book. It’s actually what I think of anytime I hear about a rattlesnake or a snake bite. It turns out that it wasn’t that bad, he gets better, and learns some important life lessons and complete the moral of the story. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2020, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/66 "2020-11-02T16:26:19Z")
I’m sure he did learn lessons! I was on a Betsy Byars kick at the time, and I think all her books had exactly the same plot (basically good kid has a character flaw that defines them, encounters some crisis, comes out the other side having learned a Very Important Lesson). All her other books I found very comforting. This one, not so much. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2020, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/67 "2020-11-02T16:27:45Z")
It didn’t make me scared of snakes, but it did make me nervous about crawling under houses. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2020, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/68 "2020-11-02T16:53:56Z")
When I was about 8, I read a one-book combination of Mark Twain’s "Tom Saywer " and “Huckleberry Finn” for kids in a German translation. I haven’t read the books since then (though I have the originals on my Kindle and plan to one time), but one bit scared the hell out of me, and I’ve never forgotten it. I don’t know if I got all the details right after 45 years, but this is how I remember it: Tom and Finn have an arch-enemy called Indian Joe (or similar), and he goes missing for weeks. In the end, the boys find his body in a cave in which he obviously got lost and starved to death. One detail I remember is that he apparently ate his last candles out of desperation, and that gave me the heebie jeebies. ---
**Author:** ![Author\_Balk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Author\_Balk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Author_Balk)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2020, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/69 "2020-11-02T17:23:45Z")
My scariest dream was when I was seven years old (give or take). Jiminy Cricket ate me. While I was being swallowed I saw what looked like a film leader - where the numbers were counted down. Every time I see that (and the Foreigner 4 album cover) I think of Jiminy Cricket. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2020, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/70 "2020-11-02T18:57:39Z")
> [@Cartooniverse](#): > > I’d forgotten this one when originally posting. My college housemate Don convinced me to go to a midnight screening of David Lynch’s [Eraserhead](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074486/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1). When the first shot of the infant was on screen I was so upset and nauseated that I left the theater. It didn’t traumatize me or anything, but I did shut it off early into it the time I tried watching it. I was just a little too weird. ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21906_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2020, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/71 "2020-11-02T19:05:44Z")
I vividly remember babysitting a couple of neighbor kids one night. I was 12 or 13, I guess. They had gone to bed and I was watching _The Birds_ on TV. When it started to get intense, I had a song running in my head - Simon and Garfunkel singing _Somewhere They Can’t Find Me_. To this day, when I hear that song, I’m back in the Nash’s living room, scared but unable to look away. Don’t know if that counts as trauma, but it sure creeped out the younger me. ---
**Author:** ![P-man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/p-man/32/3606_2.png) [@P-man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P-man)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2020, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/72 "2020-11-02T19:49:07Z")
Not a book or a movie, but the “Johnny Smoke” anti-smoking commercials scared me as a 5-6 year old. I would look away from the tv when it came on. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2020, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/73 "2020-11-02T21:03:05Z")
When I was pre-K my great aunt took me to see _The King and I_ in Radio City Music Hall. For some reason the very first scene when the Siamese sailors came to the ship (it is very fuzzy) scared the crap out of me and we had to leave. The Cowardly Lion’s appearance scared me every year when I watched Wizard of Oz. And the original _Invaders from Mars_ scared the crap out of me, possibly because we had a sand lot in our backyard. That at least was a reasonable cause for fright. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2020, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/74 "2020-11-02T21:07:38Z")
[![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/hPs2ExUL_bc/maxresdefault.jpg "Official Trailer: Suspiria (1977)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPs2ExUL_bc) “It will be the end of _youuuu_!” Yup, that’s creepy! ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2020, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/75 "2020-11-02T22:33:39Z")
The alligators in the book **No Fighting, No Biting** by Minarik/Sendak scared me a lot when I was very young. I hated when that book was read to me. [![](https://www.sunshine-book.com.tw/images/upfile/2008/2008091107080311982.jpg) ](https://www.sunshine-book.com.tw/images/upfile/2008/2008091107080311982.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2020, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/76 "2020-11-02T23:58:16Z")
> [@romansperson](#): > > One really awful thing I remember from my youth was being given _Tess of the D’Urbervilles_ to read when I was about 13. I had to read it in high school, although I was a few years older. IMO, anyone who gives an impressionable teen any Hardy novel to read should be charged with child abuse. I swear, the selection of novels we were given to read in high school was designed to stifle the love of reading in anyone by making you want to kill yourself. _Tess, Great Expectations, McTeague, The Jungle_. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ukulele_ike1/32/4613_2.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike1)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/77 "2020-11-03T01:22:23Z")
Whoa. They gave you McTeague? Who the fuck reads McTeague anymore, except for people like us? that has some serious nightmare fuel in it. Especially the amputation of Trina’s fingers after she gets lead poisoning, and her eventual murder by McTeague. And the final scenes in Death Valley, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/78 "2020-11-03T01:39:13Z")
I loved “Mr Pines Mixed up Signs!” Later I got a job with the local county and state road department. Only then did I realize that the story was not a parody, but a normal day. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/79 "2020-11-03T02:16:25Z")
I’m always surprised by how many people can’t listen to American Girl (and sometimes Tom Petty in general) due to it’s use in Silence of the Lambs. Stuck In The Middle With You/ Reservoir Dogs, I can understand, but IIRC all that happened in Silence of the Lambs while that song was playing was her driving. ---
**Author:** ![romansperson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/romansperson/32/17100_2.png) [@romansperson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/romansperson)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/80 "2020-11-03T02:29:09Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > I had to read it in high school, although I was a few years older. IMO, anyone who gives an impressionable teen any Hardy novel to read should be charged with child abuse. I swear, the selection of novels we were given to read in high school was designed to stifle the love of reading in anyone by making you want to kill yourself. _Tess, Great Expectations, McTeague, The Jungle_ . Well, if you think about it, a lot of ‘classic’ literature meant for young folks contains horrifying things. Anyone remember _Grimm’s Fairytales_? _Hansel and Gretel_ features an adult luring children in and putting them in an oven. There’s also _Little Red Riding Hood_, with the wolf who likes eating children. My husband’s mother is German and there’s even more of these sorts of stories - she read to him from a book called _Der Struwwelpeter_ with similar stories. A lot of these tales feature some pretty severe consequences for misbehaving children, including one where a tailor cuts off a child’s thumbs when he doesn’t stop sucking them. He’s 65 years old and still remembers some of these awful stories. A lot of American YA literature also features kids whose parents are mostly or fully absent and the kids have to make it on their own. Some of them are Newbery award winners. While I suppose for some kids that’s a fantasy they can afford to indulge, I wonder what kids who are actually living that life must think. In reality that doesn’t tend to work out too well. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379.md?page=5)