You know something that I can’t handle watching on screen? People getting stuck with needles. If a character’s giving blood or shooting up or getting probed by an alien, I always, always have to cover my eyes. Ugh. Evcn thinking about that stuff while I type this is make me shudder.
Why am I so sensitive? I’m not sure. But I almost pass out every time I get blood drawn at the doctor’s office, so I’m sure there’s a link.
To be totally honest, I can’t handle watching any kind of medical procedure. If I happen to land on those surgery channels, I practically need smelling salts. And one time on a trip to Toronto, my friends Stephanie and Erin convinced me to watch an episode of E.R., despite my insistence that it would make me flip out. I eventually relented, and wouldn’t you know, even my friends admitted it was one of the goriest episodes of the show they’d ever seen. I let them finish watching while I read in the other room. It was for the best.
So how about you guys? Is there anything you just can’t watch in a movie or on TV? It could be something gross, but it doesn’t have to be. Maybe you have to turn away from sex when your parents are in the room. Or maybe the sight of someone eating meat is always an eye-closer. Whatever your dealbreakers, I want to know what they are!
24 responses so far ↓
1 Bdanger // Apr 2, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Great discussion topic! I have 2- I can’t watch kidnapping (I’ll have nightmares for weeks) or dad types crying. Mystic River is a double whammy, no thank you.
2 Casey // Apr 2, 2009 at 1:43 pm
I cannot, I mean CANNOT, watch anyone throw up on screen. It’s not so much that it grosses me out – it actually makes me very angry. Filled with rage, because the sight is entirely unnecessary. The sound of someone throwing up off-screen, out-of-frame is instantly recognizable, serves the narrative and is infinitely more polite to viewers. Emily Post would back me on this, I’m sure of it.
3 bstewart23 // Apr 2, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Hunh. Maybe it has something to do with Toronto?
I can watch heads exploding — zombie or human — and it bothers me not in the slightest. People can get riddled with bullets, have limbs hacked off and die of incurable, pustule-popping diseases and I’m nonplussed. I’ve worked years in a hospital and have seen some pretty horrendous stuff; nuthin’.
But should a tiny needle prick or paper cut occur onscreen or in real life, and I’m a cringing, fetal-position mess.
4 MEP // Apr 2, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Any malformed/broken limbs. The part in Mulholland Falls when they try to pull Jennifer Connelly’s body off the ground? Cannot watch. The part in Harry Potter when Kenneth Branagh makes that kid’s arm boneless? That either.
5 Beth // Apr 2, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Rape scenes. Even when they are absolutely integral to the story, i.e. Boys Don’t Cry or Monster. I have the most visceral response to it and end up thinking about it for weeks afterwards.
6 Madge // Apr 2, 2009 at 2:27 pm
I’m with Casey about the vomit – WHY is that necessary? It makes me sick to my stomach, and want to throw up in sympathy. Blech.
Also, I freak out when violence is too real. Arms torn off? Heads exploding? That’s not real, and my monkey-brain knows it. But take, for instance, the scene in Heavenly Creatures where the two girls beat the mom to death. The camera doesn’t even show everything that’s happening, but there’s a horrible squeltch, and the mother whimpers and is so confused, and it takes real effort to do her in, and just thinking about it makes me shudder and want to cry.
7 Bunting // Apr 2, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Casey: Seconded. Can’t deal with the sight, the sound, the splashy Foley noises…I am a severe pukephobe and can’t deal with it.
8 ferretrick // Apr 2, 2009 at 3:14 pm
“Humorous” scenes that involve someone doing/saying something embarrasing, making a complete fool of themselves or being made the butt of cruel jokes. A lot of Joey’s scenes on Friends used to just make me cringe because people would be laughing at him and he would be oblivious to it or not understand why. (Think the turkey on the head). For the first few years of Friends that was Joey’s sole purpose and dimension as a character, to be the horny dumb guy and give Chandler a target for his zingers.
The Big Bang Theory is great because it mostly avoids this type of humor-the characters are geeks, and sometimes they make fools of themselves, usually in situations with women, but the humor doesn’t come from a cruel place. They aren’t two dimensional characters who exist solely to be the butt of the joke; they are fully developed personalities who also happen to be nerds. And I love that Penny isn’t a Heather Chandler, which is what I expected-she actually cares about these guys and considers them her friends.
And yes, this has to do with bad memories of high school and unresolved issues.
9 K. // Apr 2, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Thirded re: vomit. The sight is the worst, but the splash is a close second. And I can handle seeing needles in skin, but I cannot handle seeing needles INSERTED into skin. So if a junkie shoots up on Intervention and nods off with the needle in his arm, I close my eyes at the first jab but am OK with seeing him sitting there with the needle in.
I agree about rape scenes. Two episodes of Cold Case gave me nightmares: the one where Mae Whitman is raped by the river – no visual, just screams – and the one where the black woman is gang-raped by a group of white supremacists.
Also: kids in peril. Kidnapped kids, abused kids, lost kids, injured kids. Even if it’s just alluded to, like if an ominous figure goes into a room with a scared kid and closes the door … no. Or the part in A Beautiful Mind when the baby is in the bathtub … I was ITCHING to grab that kid and shut off the water.
10 Belle // Apr 2, 2009 at 3:26 pm
I can’t handle close-ups of kissing when it includes sound effects. I’m hardly uptight (i.e. I like porn) , but smoochy kisses make me have to leave the room.
11 Dandy Darkly // Apr 2, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors:
The recovering heroin addict who has the dream persona of a switchblade wielding punk rock goth girl… She’s overcome by Freddy’s nightmare influence and sees little puckered mouths where her track marks are.
Image has stayed with me FOREVER!
12 Amanda // Apr 2, 2009 at 6:41 pm
I’m with Beth. I actually climbed into my husband’s lap and cried after going to see Monster with a friend. Left the living room in tears when we rented Kill Bill. So that’s one thing I can’t watch.
Also can’t watch torture. Cannot. Pretty much any violence, really, I guess. Or slobbery make-out scenes. Over-long slobbery make-out scenes do nothing for me. If I want to see slobbery, or making out, I can hang out with my husband and my dog. Advance the plot already.
13 Collin H // Apr 2, 2009 at 7:15 pm
I’ve seen way too much blood and guts in my life for anything like that to bother me. Needles make me cringe a little, but I can still watch. So far, the only movie to ever make me turn away from the screen was Jackass No. 2. I won’t describe the scene, but it was so incomprehensibly vile (even by Jackass standards) that I left the room until it was over.
14 Stephanie D. // Apr 2, 2009 at 7:37 pm
I get freaked out by any scenes that involve adult voices coming out of children, not like those E*Trade commercials, but more like that movie, “The Others”. And, any of those moments in “The Ring” with that freaky girl crawling out of the TV.
Can’t watch it!
15 Mark Blankenship // Apr 2, 2009 at 8:23 pm
@ferretrick — Yes! I can’t watch cruel humor either. It’s why I only made it through the first five minutes of “Borat” and why I’ve never made it through an entire episode of “Crank Yankers.”
Inevitably, I think about the shame the unsuspecting victims might feel once they realize what has happened to them, or then I can’t laugh. I also have a problem with comedy that encourages me to laugh because I feel superior to someone else, and it seems to me that that kind of cruel humor is doing just that. It’s just so… smug to rob someone of their humanity by making them into an unsuspecting asshole. Even when I vehemently disagree with someone’s politics or stand or sexuality or whatever, I don’t want to see that person humiliated. What good does that do?
16 Bdanger // Apr 3, 2009 at 12:08 am
Oh! I have another one- people spitting in food. I was watching Casino tonight and almost barfed.
17 Michael // Apr 3, 2009 at 2:29 am
Ferretrick has been a fave commenter here for me, but now he’s reaching hero status.
Two observations:
Completely different responses if it’s on a big movie screen or my TV; violence punishes me in theaters in ways it doesn’t at home.
For me, the flashpoint is humiliation; there’s a scene in Altman’s Nashville when a naive, none-too-bright woman with delusions of a singing career is hooted at as she sings in a club, and is then compelled to strip to please the audience. I’ve never been able to watch it.
My son, who is deeply connected to his autistic sister, can’t stand images of helplessness, especially helpless children. Even a momentary flash of it upsets him.
18 ferretrick // Apr 3, 2009 at 9:13 am
Aw, thanks Michael. (And Mark)
Michael’s post reminded me of another example-I won’t start watching American Idol until Hollywood Week because watching people humiliate themselves in the initial auditions is too painful for me (and also pretty damn boring after 8 seasons-Simon only has so many zingers).
19 Michael // Apr 3, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Hear, hear, ferretrick, on the American Idol humiliation weeks; I have suspended friendships over this issue–too much of an empath to watch hearts break over and over again. (I guess I identify as a guy who loves vocal music and whose singing hurts the dogs.)
20 Michael // Apr 3, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Mark: I’m sure you encountered somewhere along the way Hobbes’s idea that laughter is the sudden exhilaration of perceived superiority over another? That Tom Hobbes–what a guy. Life of the party. (And you know which party.) (This is the point I center my comedy course around–the opposed elements of communal sharing versus demeaning ridicule in laughter.)
21 Mark Blankenship // Apr 3, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Hi Michael: Indeed, we covered Hobbes in a comic theory class I took at YSD. Not to my taste. I’m more of a Bergson man, with a sprinkle of Freud.
22 Ginger // Apr 3, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Totally agree with the humiliation-averse posters. I’ve been known to change the channel on an episode of “Seinfeld” because of one of the characters doing something embarrassing. I didn’t get to watch much of that show obviously.
BUT, the thing that really brings me down with the vapors is any scene dealing with teeth breaking or getting knocked out. Even in animated form like in “Kill Bill.” Remember that one? Oh my good gracious, I’m feeling faint just thinking about those cartoon teeth breaking apart and AAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII! Somebody get the smelling salts.
23 Stephanie D. // Apr 3, 2009 at 8:16 pm
I just remembered another one. Head injuries. Remember the scene in “Back to the Future” when Marty gets hit by his one-day grandfather’s car? He falls back and hits his head on the ground and then dramatically lays it back on the pavement. Yuck!
Also, basically any scene in CSI where they explore the puncture of a knife or the trajectory of a bullet searing through a person’s organs. It’s too much! Why do we need to see that?
24 Lynne // Apr 4, 2009 at 12:01 am
In addition to children being kidnapped or worse, these also stand out as stomach churners for me:
- dumb, slow-moving zombies who barely have enough strength to walk and lift their own arms. The ones with razor sharp teeth, superhuman strength, any degree of intelligent or organized thought and purpose and move with the speed of lightning don’t scare me – who’s going to believe that?
- watching my husband and son eat dinner while they watch Bear Grylls as he eats some kind of raw animal or drinks his own urine on Man vs. Wild.
- any actual footage from WWII concentration camps depicting starved, dying prisoners – I was 23 years old when I first saw it and was traumatized for weeks knowing that people, at least in modern times, could treat others like that on purpose. Inconceivable (until then).
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