Matt Smith criticizes trigger warnings in TV and 'too much policing of stories'

Matt Smith isn't totally on board with trigger warnings.

The "House of the Dragon" star, 41, in an interview with The Times expressed disapproval of trigger warnings, which alert TV viewers to the presence of disturbing content like sexual violence.

"Isn't being shocked, surprised, stirred the point?" the actor asked. "Too much policing of stories and being afraid to bring them out because a climate is a certain way is a shame. I'm not sure I'm on board with trigger warnings."

The "Doctor Who" star added, "I used to go to a local video shop and get 'Slither,' 'Basic Instinct,' 'Disclosure' — all these erotic thrillers. I was way too young to be watching them. I watched 'Friday the 13th' when I was 9. Actually, that scarred me. Absolutely ruined me."

Smith, who stars as the morally grey Daemon Targaryen on HBO's "Game of Thrones" prequel series, also told the U.K. outlet that he enjoys playing polarizing characters because "we should be telling morally difficult stories, nowadays in particular."

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"It's OK to feel uncomfortable or provoked while looking at a painting or watching a play, but I worry everything's being dialled and dumbed down," he said. "We're telling audiences they're going to be scared before they've watched something."

The practice of adding trigger warnings has become more common on TV in recent years to note the inclusion of specific kinds of content that may be disturbing for victims of trauma. Earlier this year, an episode of the Netflix series "Baby Reindeer" that featured a sexual assault opened by warning about "depictions of sexual violence which some viewers may find troubling."

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The Zoë Kravitz thriller "Blink Twice," meanwhile, recently opened with a trigger warning noting that the movie features scenes of sexual assault. This warning was also released on social media by Amazon MGM Studios.

"While this is a fictionalized movie, it contains mature themes and depictions of violence — including sexual violence," the studio's warning stated. "This may be upsetting or triggering for some viewers."

On the flip side, the Blake Lively film "It Ends With Us" recently faced criticism for not issuing a similar trigger warning alerting viewers to the presence of domestic violence in the movie.

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"By glossing over its domestic violence content in the film's marketing, and by not providing any content warnings prior to the start of the film, 'It Ends With Us' ultimately fails the survivors it is supposed to advocate for," Bridgette Stumpf, executive director of Network for Victim Recovery of DC, wrote in The Hollywood Reporter.

"This is not to say that we shouldn't depict domestic violence on film," Stumpf argued. "We should, but we should provide proper warnings to viewers prior to the opening credits to ensure that any survivor of trauma who would like to leave, can. This is something routinely done on TV shows, and should be adopted for movies, because when we have survived a traumatic experience like domestic violence, and we see similar stimuli in the future we don't just remember our own experience, we relive it."

In 2022, the first episode of "House of the Dragon" also received some backlash for not including a trigger warning about a graphic, violent scene where a woman dies in childbirth.

"I'm not seeing this discussed a bunch but in case you haven't seen 'House of the Dragon' yet: EXTREMELY BIG TRIGGER WARNING for a very violent and traumatic birth scene," YouTuber Kristin Chirico said at the time.

Chirico added, "If you still don't know that trigger warnings are a tool to prevent people from re-traumatizing themselves with something specific to their trauma, I truly cannot make you learn, go with god, if you're not in the category of affected people then this isn't your business anyway."