The U.K. organization made global headlines after hitting the new movie version of the famed musical with a “trigger warning” because it includes “discrimination.” Yes, seriously.
“A green-skinned woman is mocked, bullied, and humiliated because of her skin color,” the British Board of Film Classification warns. “A disabled woman in a wheelchair is treated in a condescending manner by able-bodied people. Talking animals are persecuted in a fantastical society.”
The horror! Of course, the entire point of the musical is that these forms of mistreatment are wrong. But that apparently doesn’t change the fact that these disturbing themes might traumatize children, as one writer for the Guardian suggested in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek defense of the “trigger warning.”
This is all absurd, and it, unfortunately, distracts from what was, all things considered, a well-done film.
No adult with an appropriate level of mental functioning requires a “trigger warning” before seeing a film simply because it features mistreatment of animals that’s not at all graphic or an allegory for racism. Any grown person who can’t handle that shouldn’t be in a movie theater at all; he should be in an in-patient mental hospital program working on his profoundly underdeveloped emotional and mental resilience.
It’s actually insulting to suggest that racial minorities, in particular, are so fragile that they need to be sheltered from or warned about the content of Wicked. People of color are not, in fact, emotional toddlers, and they do not need white saviors at the British Board of Film Classification or the Guardian to protect them from having their feelings hurt.
Anyone with an ounce of common sense can see that this kind of “trigger warning” is unnecessary, but it, like trigger warnings more broadly, may also be harmful.
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Extensive research has found that trigger warnings accompanying media accomplish nothing. When Harvard-affiliated researchers did a meta-analysis of available studies, they concluded that “existing published research almost unanimously suggests that trigger warnings do not mitigate distress.” They did, however, find that “trigger warnings reliably increased anticipatory anxiety about upcoming content, consistent with the concerns of critics.”
That’s right: Trigger warnings have no positive effect whatsoever and serve only to heighten people’s anxiety. So, maybe something positive can come from the woke mania around Wicked. People around the world who see the film despite the warning and emerge unscathed might just realize that “trigger warnings” do more harm than good.
Brad Polumbo is an independent journalist and host of the Brad vs Everyone podcast.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
