IT seems fitting that it was Ralph Fiennes, best known to anyone under 30 as the terrifying Lord Voldemort, who made headlines at the weekend with his assertion that “trigger warnings” should be scrapped.

“The impact of theatre should be that you’re shocked, and you should be disturbed,” he told Laura Kuenssberg on her Sunday BBC show.

The actor has apparently insisted that the touring production of Macbeth in which he stars does not display such advance warnings, and he chuckled when asked about his stance.

“Have audiences gone too soft?” asked Kuenssberg. “I think they have, yes,” he replied, adding “I mean, we didn’t used to have trigger warnings”. He let “...and it didn’t do us any harm!” go unspoken.

The premise of Kuenssberg’s question is that warnings have become ubiquitous due to audience demand – but is there any evidence this was the driver? Did anyone ask us if we wanted to be warned? And indeed, is there any evidence that trigger warnings have a positive impact on the people warned?

In psychology, the word “trigger” refers to something – a sight, sound, even a smell – that triggers memories of a traumatic event. To be triggered is therefore to be confronted, sometimes unexpectedly, with memories of trauma. It is not, despite what a lot of popular discussion might suggest, to merely be upset or offended about something because you are weak or fragile – in other words, a “snowflake”.

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Writing in the New Yorker in 2021, Harvard law professor Jeannie Suk Gersen outlined some evidence that trigger warnings serve to “reinforce the belief on the part of trauma survivors that trauma was central (rather than incidental or peripheral) to their identity”, and therefore have the potential to harm those they are designed to protect. She suggested that in academia, trigger warnings “have developed a spin-off cultural meaning that departs from the aim of providing psychological aid to those who suffer from trauma”, instead functioning as a means by which educators can signal that they are sensitive to the concerns of their students.

The choice by Kuenssberg and Fiennes to use the phrase “trigger warning”, as opposed to something less clinical like “content note”, feels significant, as does the absence of any discussion of what the words might actually mean.

Fiennes said he would make exceptions for elements of a production that could “affect people physically”, such as strobe lighting, but was not invited to elaborate any further. Would he, for example, permit warnings about loud noises or bangs, given this is a common trigger for those with post-traumatic stress disorder?

I sympathise with the actor’s broader point about the need to maintain elements of shock and surprise, not just in live theatre but in all forms of art, but I probably wouldn’t snigger if asked to discuss the subject. There’s a significant difference between vague warnings about the way in which a story is to be told – for example, loudly, or with stylised lighting effects – and what the plot will contain. Fiennes’s distinction between physical and psychological ill-effects feels out of touch and somewhat arbitrary.

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His points about the violence in Shakespeare plays are also not hugely relevant, given few audience members will be caught off guard by Macbeth committing murder or Romeo and Juliet taking their own lives. Content warnings are far more likely to constitute “spoilers” for new or little-known plays or films.

We now have a whole generation of film-goers who have never had a trip to the cinema without being told by the British Board of Film Classification about anything potentially upsetting. The practice of adding “content advice” began in 2013, and I distinctly remember scoffing the first time I was warned that “mild peril” was to follow.

The BBFC insists “it’s only rarely that people tell us they are unhappy” about the information displayed on the pre-screening “black cards” bearing films’ certificates, but one wonders how many are frequently irritated, just not quite enough to put fingers to keyboard several hours later. It’s one thing to warn about violence, gore or bad language, but quite another to be told upfront there will be, for example, scenes of self-harm or suicide – details that have the power to significantly alter the viewing experience. These scenes may have dictated the certificate, but why must captive audiences be told?

Asked by The Guardian about the “spoiler” effect back in 2014, the BBFC’s assistant director said “it should be taken into account how much information is already available about a film via trailers and media reviews in the lead-up to its release.” Tough luck for anyone who deliberately avoids such material, and wants to be surprised.

There’s a balance to be struck here, and it appears the status quo is informed neither by clinical evidence or public demand for advance information. Could QR codes in foyers be a workable compromise? Then those who wanted to steel themselves for challenging scenes could do so, while those who preferred to be kept in the dark could go in blind.