# 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:** 5
**Author:** ![lobotomyboy63](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobotomyboy63/32/2900_2.png) [@lobotomyboy63](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lobotomyboy63)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/81 "2020-11-03T02:36:12Z")
Snow White, for one: [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/y2zrs7Irzuw/hqdefault.jpg "Snow White & the Haunted Forest") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2zrs7Irzuw) And Bambi losing his mother: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/JTZPMJj-X9M/hqdefault.jpg "Disney's Bambi - Mother's Death") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTZPMJj-X9M) > [@romansperson](#): > > Well, if you think about it, a lot of ‘classic’ literature meant for young folks contains horrifying things. The original endings were often not so pleasant. > **[These Disney Fairy Tales Will Be Ruined For You Forever Once You Know Their...](https://www.scoopwhoop.com/entertainment/disney-fairy-tales-with-dark-twisted-endings/)** > > The not-so-happy endings. Read on to know the original endings to some of these classic Disney fairy tales. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/82 "2020-11-03T02:44:42Z")
> [@romansperson](#): > > 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. _[Fairy tales](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fairy_tales), then, are not responsible for producing in children [fear](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fear), or any of the shapes of fear; fairy tales do not give the child the idea of the [evil](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Evil) or the ugly; that is in the child already, because it is in the [world](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/World) already. **Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey**. The baby has known the [dragon](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dragon) intimately ever since he had an [imagination](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Imagination). What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon_ - G.K. Chesterton. ---
**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, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/83 "2020-11-03T03:03:08Z")
Ha. Yeah. No. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/84 "2020-11-03T03:12:53Z")
> [@romansperson](#): > > 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. Hell, _Hunger Games_ features children killing each other, and a teenager getting eaten by dogs. I remember when I picked up that book thinking YA was some sanitized kid’s thing, and based on the premise I assumed it would maybe allude to or threaten to kill children, but no, it’s a straight - up axe-to-the-face murder spree. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/85 "2020-11-03T03:20:16Z")
No, I shut my eyes during the scary parts. In the 40s, the juvenile and young readers section was not focused on fear and terror, like it is now, and children did not control the boxoffice. ---
**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 3, 2020, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/86 "2020-11-03T04:11:14Z")
I love Hansel and Gretel because it is, at heart, a story about two children who decide that the adults around them are shit, so if they’re gonna survive, they’d better look out for one another and take care of those they love. The children are constantly working to save one another from the deadly forces around them. Set the wicked stepmother and the cowardly father and the cannibal witch aside, and it’s a deeply humanistic story, my favorite of the Grimms. ---
**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 3, 2020, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/87 "2020-11-03T16:12:58Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > Tom and Finn have an arch-enemy called Indian Joe… Even less PC, _Injun Joe_. > **Spoiler** > > Tom and Becky were lost in the cave for a couple days and nearly died. After they were rescued, unconscious, when Tom comes to two weeks later, Becky’s father, Judge Thatcher, tells him the cave’s entrance had been closed by an iron door. ---
**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 3, 2020, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/88 "2020-11-03T22:14:47Z")
> [@DesertDog](#): > > Even less PC, _Injun Joe_ . > > Spoiler > > > **Spoiler** > > > > Tom and Becky were lost in the cave for a couple days and nearly died. After they were rescued, unconscious, when Tom comes to two weeks later, Becky’s father, Judge Thatcher, tells him the cave’s entrance had been closed by an iron door. Thanks for reviving my memory, I remember that even more horrible detail now. As for the name, in my German kid’s version, the it was “Indianerjoe”, literally “Indian Joe”. Never knew the original name. ETA: I’m sorry to have unspoilered your hint in the quote, I don’t know what happened, I didn’t change anything… ETA2: I went back to your post and fixed it. It’s strange, your [detail] tags didn’t carry over in the quote. ---
**Author:** ![mtnmatt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a3d4f5/32.png) [@mtnmatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mtnmatt)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/89 "2020-11-03T23:05:31Z")
I can’t recall why, but as a kid I really wanted to see Papillion, and my dad took me and my brother (9 and 7) one Saturday afternoon. My folks were normally pretty protective of what we were allowed to watch, but, perhaps because my Mom was preoccupied with a new baby, we convinced Dad to take us. We didn’t make it past the early scene in the ship where during a knife fight (as I remember) a guy got his face slashed. My brother and I were also traumatized by a “Chiller Theatre” showing of “The She Demons” one evening (parents must not have been around) which included hideously deformed women victims of the evil Nazi doctor. I can still picture that image and we realized we should turn it off. ---
**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 3, 2020, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/90 "2020-11-03T23:13:11Z")
> [@mtnmatt](#): > > I can’t recall why, but as a kid I really wanted to see Papillion, and my dad took me and my brother (9 and 7) one Saturday afternoon. My folks were normally pretty protective of what we were allowed to watch, but, perhaps because my Mom was preoccupied with a new baby, we convinced Dad to take us. I’ve never seen the movie, but I read the books (there was a sequel) at an very early age (10 or 11) and though not traumatized, I was at least very impressed and shocked by the brutality and inhumanity told. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/91 "2020-11-03T23:42:03Z")
The 1954 movie **The Naked Jungle** , which was about army ants attacking a Brazilian cocoa plantation. There was a scene where the ants are cutting leaves and using them as rafts to cross an irrigation ditch. A man who is supposed to open the flood gate has fallen asleep. He wakes up to find that his arm is being devoured by the ants. I had nightmares for a long time on that one. ---
**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 3, 2020, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/92 "2020-11-03T23:51:53Z")
I love that scene!🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2020, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/93 "2020-11-04T02:35:55Z")
As an adult, the **Deliverance** rape scene gave me the horrors. I’ve never given that movie a second viewing. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2020, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/94 "2020-11-04T02:38:39Z")
I can’t even watch that movie because I know about that scene. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2020, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/95 "2020-11-04T05:44:17Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > > [@romansperson](#): > > > > 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. > > _[Fairy tales](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fairy_tales), then, are not responsible for producing in children [fear](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fear), or any of the shapes of fear; fairy tales do not give the child the idea of the [evil](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Evil) or the ugly; that is in the child already, because it is in the [world](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/World) already. **Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey**. The baby has known the [dragon](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dragon) intimately ever since he had an [imagination](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Imagination). What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon_ > > - G.K. Chesterton. _You see, nothing has changed since Red Riding Hood. So what they’re frightened of today are exactly the same things they were frightened of yesterday._ —A. Hitchcock ---
**Author:** ![Katriona](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/katriona/32/113_2.png) [@Katriona](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katriona)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2020, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/96 "2020-11-08T19:45:51Z")
The witch in the Disney version of Sleeping Beauty scared the day lights out of me, to the point that I had to be talked at for two years to see the recent Malificent movie. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2020, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/97 "2020-11-08T23:18:42Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > > [@mtnmatt](#): > > > > I can’t recall why, but as a kid I really wanted to see Papillion, and my dad took me and my brother (9 and 7) one Saturday afternoon. My folks were normally pretty protective of what we were allowed to watch, but, perhaps because my Mom was preoccupied with a new baby, we convinced Dad to take us. > > I’ve never seen the movie, but I read the books (there was a sequel) at an very early age (10 or 11) and though not traumatized, I was at least very impressed and shocked by the brutality and inhumanity told. Not to mention the gory beheading, or the guy nailed by the flip up spike trap… ---
**Author:** ![Marion\_Wormer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d07c76/32.png) [@Marion\_Wormer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marion_Wormer)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2020, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/98 "2020-11-18T23:14:06Z")
As a child I would not go to any movie where a dog dies. As an adult I won’t go to any movie where an aircraft carrier sinks. On the non-trauma side, I remember being taken to see the Ten Commandments with my first grade sunday school and falling in love with Yul Brynner. (He had a magnificent body) [Yul Brynner](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/37/2e/7f/372e7f7741f04a1c35f50df47f5f729a.jpg) Imgine a 6 year old trying to find words to express “he’s hunka hunka burnin’ love” ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2022, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/99 "2022-01-01T06:42:28Z")
> [@xanthous](#): > > When I was 11 or 12 (early 80s, pre-parental controls) we got cable and I somehow started watching Looking for Mr. Goodbar. I’ve never seen or read about it since so I only have the memory of a sex worker (I want to say Diane Keaton?) and a gory stabbing at the end (done by somebody like Richard Gere?) Anyway it was probably the first taboo/violent thing I ever saw and it bothered me for a long, long time afterward. (nitpick on the Richard Gere - close, because he was also an unpleasant character, but it was Tom Berenger) Yeah, the film’s final images of Keaton’s dieing, gasping face flickering in the intermittent strobe light is one that can still crop up in my mind these days like it was 40-odd years ago. Absolutely terrifying. > [@needscoffee](#): > > In a Time Life book from a set we had, possibly the book on Early Man… From “The Mind” book (or was it the “Drugs” one?), there was a section on a middle-aged woman experiencing debilitating depression, with a picture of her sitting down with her face in her hand, an image that opened this 4 or 5 y.o. up to a world where big people can be in a really dark place too, and always considered it a forbidding, dreadful predicament as something to avoid. Recently posted elsewhere about the movie _The Light at the Edge of the World_ and its sadistic violence that didn’t go over too well for this seven-year-old. Its nastiness resonated with me in a negative way for quite some time. If I had seen _Clockwork Orange_ at that same time, I’m sure I would have regarded that film the same as I did _LatEotW_, however, the former didn’t arrive to my neck of the woods until I was 15, by which time, of course, I was thirsting for any depraved shit that came my way. Conversely, if my 15 y.o. self had seen _Silent Running_, I would have been laughing - actually no - just wanting to kill Bruce Dern. But no - I had to be _seven_ when I saw it, and seeing, at the end, I think it was Huey, the robot, watering the plants, by itself, plodding along, for the rest of its lonely existence, no one else, just itself and the plants, as it gradually drifts into space…(as Joan Baez rubs it in with her singing) …resulted in it sticking with me for a bit too much longer than it should have. > [@MrAtoz](#): > > I can remember being terrified by the trailer for the 1979 horror movie _Prophecy_ . For me, it was a trailer of similar ilk - [It’s Alive.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8xe8p6zECQ) Yeah, that stuck with me like homesick diarrhea slithering up my leg. I’d figure, for your vieiwng pleasure, **Mr. Atoz** , provide the quite bucolic final seven seconds of your flick… [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/Mrn3ObP8q9o/hqdefault.jpg "PROPHECY (1979) monster horror movie") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mrn3ObP8q9o&t=5998) ---
**Author:** ![Uncle\_Jocko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uncle_jocko/32/2932_2.png) [@Uncle\_Jocko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncle_Jocko)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2022, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379/100 "2022-01-03T15:01:37Z")
This resurrected thread gives me the chance to post about nine-year-old me having nightmares about evil little creatures living in my walls thanks to [Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark.](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069992/) Poor Kim Darby … Lots of people seem to think the killer doll after Karen Black in [Trilogy Of Terror](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073820/) was equally scary, but no, those little whispering dudes making Darby one of their own nearly scarred me for life. A couple of other very memorable TV movies of the era for me (while maybe not traumatizing) were [Killdozer](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071717/) and [Ants!](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076214/) (much better than the original nondescript title, It Happened At Lakewood Manor). Oh, the sight of Suzanne Somers getting devoured by ants in her bed … TV movies of the 1970s were really something. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-unintentionally-traumatized-by-childhood-books-or-movies/924379.md?page=6)