Traumatization...
Feb. 5th, 2006 01:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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mallorys_camera put up a thought-provoking post based loosely on my rant concerning the tempest over showing Faust to some first- through third-graders near Denver.
I cannot comment on the likelihood of being traumatized by a fat guy in tights and a bad moustache singing in some foreign language, but thinking back to my childhood, I do remember two specific exposures to the moving picture that, I suppose, could be classified as "traumatization."
The first instance that comes to mind was watching - or trying to watch - a telecast of a movie titled House on Haunted Hill. It scared the daylights out of me, so much so that I had nightmares for several days afterward. Was I traumatized? I suppose that depends on the definition, but to this day horror movies - even campy ones intended to be funny - rank dead last in my pantheon of movie preferences. (Strangely enough, I can watch movies such as Hannibal and not blink an eye; I think my reaction may have to do with the absence or presence of the supernatural as a plot point.)
The second instance had to do with the fact that my father used to watch a documentary series titled The Twentieth Century, narrated by Walter Cronkite, every Sunday afternoon. Most of the footage shown was of war, and more to the point, of the Second World War. I remember endless scenes of aircraft flying in the sky, of doors opening underneath the fuselage, of bombs falling, and of buildings exploding, fires burning, and bodies lying in the street.
Being a kid and inexpert in the fine art of aircraft identification, I saw no substantial difference between the Flying Fortresses flying over Europe on our black-and-white set and the propellered DC-10s making their approach to LaGuardia Airport, which was not far from our house in Queens. Every once in a while, changes in wind direction would cause some of these airplanes to fly directly over our apartment house (and to make matters worse, we lived on the top floor).
Inwardly, I was scared. I didn't understand the war or anything much beyond my pre-third-grade life of playing ball in the schoolyard, reading books about people like Kit Carson, and watching cartoons on television. Sometimes, I would sit by the window and watch the planes as they were about to fly over me, a few hundred feet directly overhead, apprehensively strain to see whether those doors underneath were open or not, and wondered: what do I do if they are? I never shared these concerns with my parents when I was a kid, though I may have mentioned it later in adult life (and if I did, it elicited no major comment).
Was that traumatization? The fact that I mention it probably means something, but again, I suppose it depends on your definition, and says nothing as to whether it is, or should be, the responsibility of the community, of the state, or of Someone Else™ to prevent it, or appear to.
Cheers...
mallorys_camera put up a thought-provoking post based loosely on my rant concerning the tempest over showing Faust to some first- through third-graders near Denver.I cannot comment on the likelihood of being traumatized by a fat guy in tights and a bad moustache singing in some foreign language, but thinking back to my childhood, I do remember two specific exposures to the moving picture that, I suppose, could be classified as "traumatization."
The first instance that comes to mind was watching - or trying to watch - a telecast of a movie titled House on Haunted Hill. It scared the daylights out of me, so much so that I had nightmares for several days afterward. Was I traumatized? I suppose that depends on the definition, but to this day horror movies - even campy ones intended to be funny - rank dead last in my pantheon of movie preferences. (Strangely enough, I can watch movies such as Hannibal and not blink an eye; I think my reaction may have to do with the absence or presence of the supernatural as a plot point.)
The second instance had to do with the fact that my father used to watch a documentary series titled The Twentieth Century, narrated by Walter Cronkite, every Sunday afternoon. Most of the footage shown was of war, and more to the point, of the Second World War. I remember endless scenes of aircraft flying in the sky, of doors opening underneath the fuselage, of bombs falling, and of buildings exploding, fires burning, and bodies lying in the street.
Being a kid and inexpert in the fine art of aircraft identification, I saw no substantial difference between the Flying Fortresses flying over Europe on our black-and-white set and the propellered DC-10s making their approach to LaGuardia Airport, which was not far from our house in Queens. Every once in a while, changes in wind direction would cause some of these airplanes to fly directly over our apartment house (and to make matters worse, we lived on the top floor).
Inwardly, I was scared. I didn't understand the war or anything much beyond my pre-third-grade life of playing ball in the schoolyard, reading books about people like Kit Carson, and watching cartoons on television. Sometimes, I would sit by the window and watch the planes as they were about to fly over me, a few hundred feet directly overhead, apprehensively strain to see whether those doors underneath were open or not, and wondered: what do I do if they are? I never shared these concerns with my parents when I was a kid, though I may have mentioned it later in adult life (and if I did, it elicited no major comment).
Was that traumatization? The fact that I mention it probably means something, but again, I suppose it depends on your definition, and says nothing as to whether it is, or should be, the responsibility of the community, of the state, or of Someone Else™ to prevent it, or appear to.
Cheers...
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Date: 2006-02-06 02:19 pm (UTC)I think, though, that if 6 or 7 year-olds were to be traumatized by opera, they'd probably find Hansel and Gretel far more upsetting--these kids were abandoned in the woods by their parents! On Purpose! And a witch tried to eat them! No, that would give the little darlings nightmares. Faust would be much safer, at least the parts without Marguerite, because it would be so alien to them. Also, no Joan Sutherland--even when she was young and slender, her sheer size was frightening.