Matt Smith is worried that “everything will be hit and miss” with the rise of trigger warnings in the entertainment world.
speech to London “Times”The House of Dragons star lamented how trigger warnings prevent viewers from having a visceral, unexpected response like being “shocked, surprised, excited,” which he believes is the goal of the stories.
“It’s OK to feel uncomfortable or angry when you’re watching a movie or a game, but I worry about everything being loud and silly,” Smith said. “We’re telling the audience that they’re going to be scared before they see anything.”
And he continued: “(I)m not surprised, it’s not surprising, it’s woke point? Too much policing of stories and being afraid to post them because the climate is a certain way is a shame. I’m not sure I agree with trigger warnings.”
Smith then recalled growing up and watching films that, while perhaps inappropriate for his age, had a lasting impact on him.
“I used to go to a local video store and buy ‘Slither,’ ‘Basic Instinct,’ ‘Exclosure,’ and all these erotic thrillers. I was too young to see them,” she said. “I saw Friday the 13th when I was nine. It actually made me sad. It totally destroyed me.”
Prefacing a television episode, movie, or play with a trigger warning is a practice that has gained popularity in recent years to warn viewers about specific content that a portion of the piece may find particularly disturbing. Trigger warnings are more specific than the usual parental warnings seen before most movies and television, and typically warn about domestic or sexual violence, among other things.
Smith isn’t the first actor to comment on the growing credibility of trigger warnings. Ralph Fiennes weighed in on the topic in February, concluding with a practice that would leave audiences shocked and awed.
“I don’t think we’ve had trigger warnings before,” he said. “I mean, in Macbeth there are very disturbing scenes, gruesome murders and gruesome things. But I think the effect of theatre should be to shock you and disturb you.”
Fiennes continued: “I don’t think you have to be prepared for these things, and when I was young, we never got any adverts for plays. Shakespeare’s plays are full of murder, full of horror. As a young student and theatre lover, I’ve never had any warnings saying, ‘By the way, in King Lear, Gloucester is going to poke his eyes out. ’”
Smith currently stars on HBO’s House of Dragons, a series whose sex and violence could easily come with its own warning. The show has just wrapped up its second season.
