The Warning Came Before the Gunshot

Last night, Prime Video provided a “trigger warning” at the opening of Reacher Season 4 that spoiled one of the show’s main features: It’s supposed to be a mystery series.

The episode began with a warning about suicide.

Moments later, Reacher was riding through Philadelphia on a nearly empty subway car after two in the morning. Near the end of the car sat an older Asian woman, sobbing, with both hands buried inside a blue bag.

Reacher began studying her. Something was wrong. Her clothes, her movements, the bag, and her nervous behavior suggested that she might be carrying a bomb.

Reacher did not know what was inside the bag. Bonnie and I did. The woman was not going to detonate a bomb. She was going to pull out a gun and kill herself.

Prime Video had already supplied the answer. The warning did not spare us the suicide. It merely spared us the suspense.

We have moved from giving parents information about what their children might see to giving adults caution about what they might see or hear. In doing so, trigger warnings can spoil stories, heighten anxiety, and quietly teach us that content can cause psychological danger.

Content Warnings Began in 1968

The American film-rating system began in 1968 with G, M, R, and X.

It was created principally to help parents decide what their children should see. The X rating originally meant adults only. It was not originally a pornography label, although it acquired that association later.

The warning was a parental guide: “This may not be suitable for your children.” But now warnings are mostly “triggers” labels for adults. “This may not be emotionally suitable for you.”

Modern trigger warnings are intended to help people prepare for or avoid material connected to their individual traumatic experiences. In contrast, traditional film ratings are intended to help parents judge age appropriateness.

The research record on the newer practice is not encouraging.

A 2024 meta-analysis of empirical studies found that warnings had no meaningful effect. They did not reduce distress once the content arrived. What they reliably did was increase the opposite. In short, the warnings often made people more anxious while they waited, but did not make the experience any less distressing.

Stories depend upon uncertainty. A creator controls what the audience knows and when the audience learns it. It’s good storytelling. But a specific warning can seize that control from the storyteller.

For instance: The opening scene of Reacher Season 4 was constructed around a question: What is inside the blue bag? A bomb? A weapon? Something harmless? Is Reacher correct? Is he profiling an innocent woman? Can he calm her down?

The writers carefully constructed a mystery around the woman’s behavior. The platform demolished it with a two-second warning.

I Want a Trigger Warning About Trigger Warnings

Was Amazon protecting us from the scene, or protecting itself from criticism for showing the scene? We can show you anything, provided we warn you first.

A society cannot organize all public communication around every individual’s most painful private experience.

Eventually the categories expand until ordinary human realities become hazards: death, grief, addiction, illness, childbirth, infertility, religion, war, bullying, smoking, weight, food, language, political beliefs, and virtually everything else that reminds someone of something painful.

The question is no longer “Should we be showing this?” It becomes “Did we properly warn people before showing it?”

But consider this problem with trigger warnings:

The same warning that tells one person to turn away may tell another person that this is exactly what he wants to see. “This episode contains suicide.” “This program depicts sexual violence.” “The following material includes domestic abuse.” “Viewer discretion is advised because of graphic violence.”

For the trauma survivor, that may be intended as a caution. For the ordinarily curious viewer, it may create suspense. For the sensation seeker, it may promise something shocking. For someone already drawn toward violent, sexually exploitative, or sadistic material, it may operate as a locator.

A trigger warning does not merely identify what someone may wish to avoid. It also identifies what someone else may wish to find.

Psychologists already recognize this phenomenon as the “forbidden-fruit effect.” Experiments have found that warning labels can increase interest in violent television programs, particularly when the labels sound authoritative or restrictive.

The warning becomes an unintended advertisement.

Scripture Pulls No Triggers

The Bible contains extraordinarily difficult material: murder, war, suicide, rape, betrayal, persecution, child sacrifice, famine, disease, demonic oppression, and execution. Scripture does not sanitize the human condition.

What it doesn’t contain are “trigger warnings.”

Why? Because Scripture does not present emotional discomfort as the greatest danger confronting humanity.

There are Biblical warnings, but they are different.

They warn people about sin, judgment, deception, temptation, suffering, and eternal consequences.

Their purpose is not to help people avoid every troubling feeling. Their purpose is to prepare people to face reality faithfully.

John 16:33 captures the distinction perfectly. Christ warns His disciples that they will experience tribulation, but He couples the warning with courage and hope because He has overcome the world.

Christianity does not promise us a trigger-free world. Christ promises something greater: that suffering, evil, grief, and death will not have the final word.

AUTHOR

Martin Mawyer

Martin Mawyer is the founder of the Digital Intelligence Project and the President of Christian Action Network. He is the host of the “Shout Out Patriots” podcast and author of When Evil Stops Hiding. For more action alerts, cultural commentary, and real-world campaigns defending faith, family, and freedom, subscribe to Patriot Majority Report.

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