If there’s a laugh track, I’m not watching it. Nothing, I repeat, nothing, about TV shows pisses me off more than laugh tracks. I don’t need to be told when to laugh! If you need to play a goddamn track of people laughing whenever something “funny” happens on your show, then your show isn’t funny. The instant I hear that canned laughter, I stop watching.
Arrested Development - probably the best comedy show of the past ten years, and no laugh track. I wonder why?
Anything having to do with the Holocaust. No Schindler’s List for me. No Life Is Beautiful, even though I love Benigni. I even had to cover my eyes during the opening scene of the first X-Men movie.
Any food scene that is the result of a sound editor thinking, “You know what this scene needs? A lot of chewing and crunching sounds! And utensils scraping against plates, and people’s teeth! And slurping, and food splattering on plates…”
Any scene in which authority is mocked for no reason except that it is authority: i.e., without establishing scenes that make the audience hope the authority figure gets his.
I hear ya, Vox Imperatoris—it’s awkwardness and embarrasment that does it for me. With the exception of it happening to unlikable characters, but that really crosses back over into “revenge,” which is completely cool.
Also, assholes getting away with things. Bureaucrats, too. Really urks me—spoils the whole work for me. (I mean, I’m as big a fan of non-formulaic storytelling as anyone, but I have to admit I like a little wish fulfillment in my entertainment. There’s too little proper comeuppance in the world as it is.)
I can’t stand watching idiocy or awkwardness played up for laughs. Oddly, I can (and will) watch The Gods Must Be Crazy, but in that case, the Klutzy Researcher is only klutzy in front of the woman he has a crush on, so it’s tolerable. I will immediately either turn off the TV or leave the room if Jerry Lewis is in a movie on TV.
I’m not particularly fond of gore for gore’s sake. If I’m watching a real operation, I can look at it. If I’m seeing buckets of blood thrown around the scene, I’ll switch to another show or turn off the TV. This also limits my video game choices. I was sort of squicked out by Parasite Eve, with its Mighty Morphing Mitochondrial Mutants changing right there in front of me.
I DO NOT need to see vomit, or the act of vomiting.
Animal pain, especially when it’s cats, really upsets me. I can’t watch those animal rescue shows at all. I can’t stand to see so much as a flea on my cats. I’m able to tolerate them getting a shot or a microchip implanted, though. I’m pretty sure that I could give my cats insulin or other injections, if they needed it.
Children being hurt - I can handle the danger part.
Eyeball ickiness.
Gore just to be gory.
Y’know, I know it’s spelled right, but this line still made me :eek:!
Anything with Robin Williams trying to be funny.
Every time a show gets all preachy, trying to sell me the political or social ideas of the writers in a manipulative fashion (as in showing the people supporting an idea as good and noble and right and their opponents as screeching evil charicatures)
So yeah, I basically only watch “the wire” over and over.
I won’t watch eyeball stuff either, and I’ve found rape scenes really really bother me. I don’t mean just graphic rape either. I was surprised at this because there are a ton of rape scenes in Indian cinema, and they never bothered me because they are so fake “Bacchao!” (Help me!)
I even watched Boys Don’t Cry and while the rape scene was disturbing, and I cried through it, I was able to watch it. But what truly icks me out is when I really start identifying with the character, and then they set her up in a rape scene. She doesn’t even have to actually get raped…just the setup is bad enough. It’s why I never went past Season 2.0 on Battlestar Galactica - I liked Boomer too much.
Animal harm/death is difficult, yes, and I may avoid watching a program that may involve it … What really gets me though, to the OP’s point of not physically being able sit through it, is damage or graphic injury to a joint (knees, elbow, jaw…argggg). Don’t know why, but I can’t stop imagining it happening to myself.
And now I’ve oogied myself right out. aaaaaaaaeeeeeeeeeeeeiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.
Nosebleeds. They’re about the only thing that makes me cringe and hide my eyes.
Children sick, hurt, or dying, or grieving.
Pets, ditto.
Eyeball trauma.
Skin diseases really yuck me out IRL or on tv/movies.
Eyeballs, fingernails, joints bent too far or in the wrong direction…
Why am I becoming a nurse again? 
I don’t know, it’s weird, this stuff doesn’t bother me in real life, but on screen it’s oogifying. No problem with sick or injured kids, and I even especially *like *scenes involving preemies. This is why I’m (for now) planning on becoming a preemie specializing nurse.
Most rape scenes are okay, but there was one that really, really got to me. I don’t remember what movie it was, but instead of screaming and struggling, the victim just went kinda quiet and catatonic until it was all over. There was a POV shot of her focusing on some inconsequential detail in the background over her attacker’s shoulder or something. That scene wrecked me. Far, far too realistic; I knew that whoever wrote or directed it had been through it.
Singing. People busting out into song for no goddamn reason. I like recorded music, and I like concerts. I can’t watch musicals, or opera. Family Guy, Scrubs, The Simpsons, lots of shows do it. I can’t hit fast forward fast enough. The Daily Show had a segment where they were poking fun at a political song Streisand (?) did, and they all sang. To me, it’s the aural equivalent of having your nose removed with a cheesegrater. I just can’t take it.
I’m not a big fan of maggots either. I like shows like CSI, but I fucking hate it when they’re suddenly like ‘Oh, 1st instar maggots, hows about that.’ and the whole screen is one big vomit inducing close up. Ugh.
Either way, I agree. No fun to watch.
I can’t watch people embarrass themselves, be they characters whose embarrassment is played for laughs or real people who are embarrassing themselves without realizing it. Some Daily Show/Colbert Report segments are excruciating for this reason.
I also can’t watch people become genuinely angry, like when guests on a talk show get upset. (Fictional anger doesn’t bother me.)
Also, people getting poked in the stomach, especially with needles. The amniocentesis scene in the second season of Battlestar Galactica? Oh, hell, no. That allegedly “hot” scene in House when Cameron gets a big needle drilled into her stomach? Made me nearly cry with sympathetic anxiety.
Having been to the deepest and darkest depths of the Internet, there’s not much on TV or movies that makes me turn away. I just wanted to chime in that nobody who posted in this thread should ever watch the Korean movie Oldboy.
Rape scenes.
Eyeball ooginess.
The only movie I remember seeing any fingernail stuff in was The Ring, I had to look away during that.
Animal abuse.
Graphic depictions of vomiting. Urg.
Seconded. I saw it, and all I can say is that at least the worst scenes for me were telegraphed from a mile away, so I had plenty of time to hide my eyes.
Stunning movie, though- so good, but I just can’t recommend it to most people…
Autopsy scenes, or anything depicted real surgery for me. Also anything revolving around torture. I’m never ever EVER going to watch Hostel. Ever.