The Art of (Advising) Discretion

I love when you’re watching television and they'll run a warning before the show, you know "Warning: This show contains violence and mature subject matter. Viewer discretion is advised."

Viewer discretion is advised... well thank you, thank you Mr. TV Network for advising me to use my discretion, a word that means to make my own choices. I'm really glad you are giving me permission to do this, you know, because I've been sitting on my couch mindlessly wishing you'd let me make my own decisions in life, so thank you for letting me know for the next hour that I can.

Of course what the network is saying is there might be something coming up that will scare you or jar your senses in some way, and that you may not want to watch.

This particular warning came last night as I sat down to watch one of those movies full of death at the hands of swords, guns, and the like. Basically the kind of overblown Hollywood popcorn flick that makes you scratch your head at who this is disturbing or offending. The only answer I can think of to this question is, "someone whose loved one was killed by an evil, eye patch wearing, reincarnated samurai." If this describes you, let me extend my heartfelt sympathy for your loss, I'm sure the one robotic armed samurai with the unexplainable Scottish accent will one day get what he deserves.

For the rest of us I find it hard to believe this violence demands our discretion, so let’s sit back and be mindless like Hollywood intended.

What's ironic is that certain commercials don't run with such a warning, like "The following commercial will make you feel really guilty for not adopting a village full of African orphans, viewer discretion is advised."

I was thinking about this late last night when I was innocently watching my movie on television, sitting at my home in Toronto when a Workplace Safety and Insurance Board of Ontario ad (WSIB) came on. For those of you from the area you’ll probably already know what I am talking about, for the rest of you I'll explain.

The Workplace Safety people have begun running ads whose messages are all "there are no accidents". They begin with a person doing a job; say a construction worker welding or a retail employee climbing a ladder to stock shelves. As they do their job they will look straight into the camera and tell us details of their life like "on the weekend I'll be getting married, but I won't be walking down the aisle, because..." and then they'll explain what’s wrong with the situation.

Then suddenly, in a flash of carnage, an accident (sorry WSIB I've got to say there is such a thing as accidents) will happen in gruesomely real detail.

Last night it was a chef who slipped on a wet floor while carrying a big pot of boiling water. She slams her head off the stove before colliding with the floor, the scolding water burning her limp body.

My mouth was still left gaping in shock (something I swore only happens in cartoons) as we faded back into the film of pyrotechnics and computerized guts, for which my discretion was to be used on.

My point is Hollywood's brand of violence and destruction doesn't really disturb me because for some reason I feel pretty secure genetically mutated (to cure cancer... somehow?) sharks won't chomp me to bits. Yet these workplace safety ads scare and disturb me to no end. It's the small accidents in life, those random things that are chilling.

In fact thanks to WSIB I have begun compiling a list of jobs I will never, ever do. I just cross my fingers they never run a commercial on improperly grounded microphone's killing comedians.

So run your redundant discretion warnings not before staged fights between rich actors, but before the truly freighting and upsetting. Why warn me about a car chase involving stunt men when you spring on me real life pictures of dead people in the news every day?

It reminds me of this show I was addicted to back in college called City Confidential. The concept of this true life documentary is that at the beginning of the show they'd introduce you to some big city or small town in America. They gave the history of the place, profiled the locals, some of the areas 'hot spots' like local bars or restaurants. They'd engulf you in this feeling of "what a great place," and then suddenly they'd rip it out from right under you.

See City Confidential is the story not only of the city, but a mystery that captivated the place. And like most captivating mysteries, Confidential's always revolved around murder.

What ultimately made the show was narrator Paul Winfield. His voice was one part wise old man simply telling you a story, and yet another part was laced with this chillingly playful tone that causes every turn of phrase to make your skin crawl.

Lines played on the location, "...and a mysterious death that had Newport caught up in a story with more twists and turns than the corridors of a seventy room seaside castle." Often still they'd simply use a play on words that'd be humourous if it weren't for the subject matter, and even when dealing with grizzly murder there'd always be a contradiction in the level of playfulness in the narration that’d be creepy and powerful. A lot is lost when it just sits before you on a page, but all the same, we cannot forget the ultimate example, "actually, the police had already ruled out Satan as a suspect."

They were real people, the exact same type who dot our lives, living in neighbourhoods eerily similar to ours, and their stories of events crashing down into murder were again, all too real.

And this is why when I walk in a forest late at night or a dark basement it’s not the themes from Psycho or Halloween I hear in my mind, it's Paul Winfield, narrating my every move.

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