JUST when I manage to drop one bad habit, I seem to pick up a new one. I quit smoking years ago, after my wife told me she was getting old before her time thanks to me keeping her awake at night with my coughing.
I’ve stopped eating so many sweets, replacing them with lots of crispy bacon. As for whisky, well, some things I’ll give up only when they put me in my grave. And even then I hope everyone else will be enjoying a few good shots in my honour.
So, on to my new bad habit. Like so many other people in Mzansi, I’ve become addicted to Game of Thrones.
The American TV show, based on a series of books, is set in a fantasy universe that is just as violent as an average SABC news bulletin.
The guy who created the whole thing said he was inspired by the wars in Europe during the Middle Ages, but all the family feuds and the literal backstabbing might just as well have been inspired by our own history.
Anyone remember Shaka and Dingaan?
It’s a really good show, although it can be hard to watch at times. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, since some of the best books and movies make us uncomfortable. Just think of some of Shakespeare’s stories, or a movie like Saving Private Ryan.
But after the latest episode, those Internet feminists have gone crazy again, saying that the show is evil and horrible and that nobody should watch it. The reason they’re mad is that one of the characters was a victim of sexual violence in this episode. Some websites have decided to no longer review or promote the series, saying that it had become just too violent.
I find it sort of weird that they are now suddenly finding it too violent, when it’s been like that all along.
There was a scene a while ago where one character’s 4-5 was brutally chopped off. Somehow that wasn’t bad enough to make these women stop watching. I wonder why.
I’m an old man, so I guess my opinion wouldn’t count much with these type of people anyway, but I think they have gone just a bit crazy.
They used to fight for things like giving women the right to vote, and they’d march in the streets for paid maternity leave. Now they fight for the right to not be offended by TV shows, and bully people who don’t share their opinions on Twitter.
And don’t even get me started on trigger warnings? Don’t know what a trigger warning is? I didn’t either, until two weeks ago. It turns out it’s got nothing to do with guns or anything like that.
It’s a warning that appears at the beginning of a piece of writing, or before a video, indicating that the contents may upset someone who has mental problems.
A video that shows soldiers, for example, might upset someone who developed mental health problems after fighting in a war.
YOU get the idea. Used to be that if something was wrong with your head it was your responsibility to sort it out, but these days it seems everyone else is expected to walk on eggshells around you. How the world has changed!
I learned about trigger warnings after a friend sent me an article about how American universities are now being forced to put them in famous works of literature.
As the author of that piece rightly pointed out, this sort of nonsense will lead to almost every great book ever written having to carry a warning for violence, racism, sexual assault violence or whatever.
And if you can’t even handle books or TV shows that depict what happens in life, how are you going to deal with real life?
Are we all all becoming too soft, or what’s going on here?
) Let me know what you think by e-mailing me at [email protected].
Until next week, salani kahle!
This article first appeared in the Sunday Sun.
