Let's dig deeper: What Trauma Porn is, and What Trauma Porn Isn't

A conversation erupted on Twitter a week or so ago, and I have a lot of thoughts...

A week ago there were a lot of conversations on Twitter about trauma porn. As a lover of Black happily ever afters, I have a lot of feelings about trauma porn, all of which can be summed up here in a story I wrote for The Mighty back in 2020. 

Before I start, I want to mention that I intentionally don’t interact with very heavy media, especially Black media. I’m aware that some of the media talks about our history, culture, plights, etc., but for my own mental health I have to stay away. I have very strong media boundaries as a consumer, and that’s why this trauma porn conversation is frustrating me. 

The conversation about trauma porn is losing the plot due to the lack of knowledge around what trauma porn is and quite frankly, what it isn’t. 

For starters, trauma porn is exploitative in nature, usually for capitalistic gains. It’s the rape scene in “Game of Thrones,” or the entirety of “This is America.” It’s Tyler Perry’s version of “For Colored Girls.” Yes, reality is dark, gritty, and inherently traumatic, however the media doesn’t have to be. There’s a difference between showcasing the grittiness of life in a way that’s respectful of the viewer, whether it be with a trigger warning at the beginning of the content or implying versus showing what’s happening, versus displaying the trauma loudly for everyone to see in a grotesque and triggering way. 

Secondly, and this brings me to my larger point – people (especially Black folk) should be able to write about their own trauma, whether it’s racial or not. 

I’ll be frank. I don’t partake in a lot of content about slavery, Jim Crow, etc. It’s not because I’m ignoring that it happened or I don’t know my history. I’m simply chronically mentally ill and can’t mentally handle seeing it. That being said, I do believe that if done properly, there’s a needed place for this type of media. I would love to say there’s a fine line between what is and isn’t considered to be trauma porn over that topic matter, but I don’t believe that. I think there’s a blunt ass line that is hard to miss.

Ava Duvernay’s “When They See Us,” is a documentary covering the central park five. It’s a tragedy and it’s hard to watch. However, Ava handled the story with care in a way that wasn’t exploitive. That’s not trauma porn, even if it deals with the trauma of a group of people that pertains to their racial plight.

Does this story center Black folk’s trauma? Yes. The events mentioned in films like “When They See Us,” or even the upcoming movie “Till” coming out dive into open wounds that are nowhere near close to healing for the Black community, however, there’s a large difference between that and as I mentioned, “For Colored Girls,” which depicted real traumas that Black women go through, but they showed it to us with no warning graphically. 

“For Colored Girls” traumatized a young fifteen-year-old me who was just excited to watch a movie about Black women with Anika Noni Rose in it. I will never get those scenes out of my mind, and that doesn’t equate to it being impactful in a positive way. Do Black women experience assault, medical trauma, and child related murder and death? Yes, but what message was conveyed by showing those scenes? What did it benefit? What did it add? The same conversations could have been conveyed even if there was a cutaway scene. 

Media that handles Black folk’s trauma, especially historically speaking, can be done respectfully. I look at it this way:

When I go to therapy and I’m recounting a traumatic experience, I feel uncomfortable. I hate it. I have to think about these things that happened to me that changed me on a clinical psychological level. My therapist guides the uncomfortable conversation respectfully, helping me move through it healthily. However, it's productive and ultimately leads to more introspection and conversation.

What would happen if I went to therapy, recounted the same experiences, and my therapist decided to recreate those traumatizing experiences without warning because “it’s reality and we need to talk about it.” Negligent re-exposure to that experience does nothing but trigger and traumatize me more.

Black folk should feel empowered to tell their stories, good and bad. When we’re in control of our stories, and we tell it with the intentional purpose to educate or share what happened to us in a respectful way, we aren’t contributing to the trauma porn problem. However Black or non-Black folk who take our stories or our humanity and play with it on the screen for a hopeful award nomination are a completely different story.

Black people inherently going through a traumatic experience on screen isn’t immediately and inherently trauma porn, and labeling media as such can really hurt Black media’s viewership. Yes, we deserve fairytales, happy endings, and stories that don’t always centralize our trauma. We should have slice-of-life flicks, books, comics, you name it, that focus on us as human beings versus the fact that we’re Black Black Blickety Black.  I completely agree with that, but mislabeling media because you can’t personally watch it isn’t right. Feelings aren’t always facts, and we have to remember that.

You don’t have to partake in media that covers the many dark parts of the Black diaspora’s history. In fact you can completely avoid it like I do. Just be aware that words have meanings, and we need to be careful on how we use those words. You’re not weaker for choosing to not watch movies like that. It’s important to know your limits and boundaries. 

We deserve every kind of story you can think of, but not stories that exploit our trauma, and there’s a big difference between that and stories that simply cover all the different facets of humanity that we too experience.