Should TV and film come with grief trigger warnings?

Yes, I'm talking about Succession again.

Firstly, hello to all new subscribers! There was an influx last week after I wrote this article for Bricks about closing my own magazine, Sister. You can read more about that in this post, but thank you for being here. This newsletter is a free space without a strict theme, and I hope you enjoy it 😊

Now, onto something which has been preoccupying my brain this week. Sorry (not sorry) for talking about Succession again, but I promise I have good reason. Don’t read on if you don’t want spoilers. 

I talk about grief quite a lot, and have immersed myself in ‘learning’ more about grief since my dad died unexpectedly five years ago. That might sound like a strange thing to say, but I hadn’t experienced such a loss before, and I’ve found it helps me to cope and navigate an entirely different life to the one I had when he was alive. 

However, in those first few months after his death, I could not handle any on screen portrayals of dying, grieving, family…even storylines which contained positive father figures were an absolute no-go. This rather limited my viewing options, and I found myself stuck in mindless loops of ‘reality’ television to avoid experiencing any kind of emotion. It worked for the most part, and still does (shout out to The Hills, KUWTK, Love Island, all for providing me with multiple opportunities to completely disassociate). 

Succession is not considered reality television, but it provides a similar experience of escapism (in case you hadn’t noticed, reality TV isn’t exactly rooted in realism). Whilst it was inevitable that Logan was going to die this season, never in a million years did I think it would fuck me up as much as that episode did—and not because I felt a particular affinity to his character. 

It was because it’s probably the most realistic portrayal of a modern death, and the tidal wave which it ensues, that I have ever seen. When the Roy siblings are wandering around the boat, searching for one another, attempting to decide who to call or tell first, what to do, how to act, I couldn’t breathe. Nothing has taken me back to that horrendous day in January 2018 so vividly. 

GQ called it a ‘surprisingly mundane death’ and whilst Logan is a fictional character, who you would most likely to expect to go out with an almighty crescendo, it’s accurate because most deaths are mundane. You do just exit the world, as Alan Ruck who plays Connor says in the HBO ‘Inside The Episode’ YouTube video: “These things happen in all our lives, with our parents or anyone you love, anybody in your life. And something happens, and they’re just gone.” No matter how powerful someone’s presence may be in life, no matter how robust and untouchable they may seem, they’re humbled through death.

Which I guess is what makes it all the more difficult to process. My father wasn’t a media tyrant, but he was a tough bloke from North Yorkshire. He was the patriarch of our family, the glue that held the whole thing together. Whilst he didn’t bark at anyone who crossed his path to fuck off, he rarely bit his tongue, no matter how inappropriate or embarrassing I may have found it at the time. To die in bed from an undetected heart condition didn’t seem like a plausible end for someone who had such a large impact on our lives.

The reaction from the Roy siblings–of complete and utter disbelief, and at points denial–cut through me like a knife. When Frank offers to hold the phone to their dying (or dead) father’s ear, the parallels were too similar to my own experience to bear. Whilst I had been lucky enough to get on a plane to be by my father’s bedside, he was pronounced brain dead upon my arrival. The on shift nurse encouraged me to still speak to him, to talk to him as I would normally, as apparently hearing is the last sense to go in the dying process. I remember reading aloud BBC News push notifications from my father’s phone. I turned the sound up to full volume, in the hope that one of the aggressive accompanying noises would awaken him, and everything could just go back to normal. Of course, it didn’t.  

Whilst countless news outlets have been quick to praise the cinematic episode (rightly so), even earning a ten star rating on Rotten Tomatoes, all of the hype has made me wonder—could we not have been given a bit of a heads up? There are trigger warnings for flashing lights, sex scenes, graphic violence, drug use—so why not grief? I appreciate it *might* have given the plot away, but as I was settling in to catch up on my problematic billionaire friends on a bank holiday Monday morning (early to avoid spoilers, duh) I wasn’t expecting to feel the deepest, darkest emotions I’m capable of feeling. A warning would have been nice. I couldn’t function properly for the rest of the day, hell, the rest of the week, hence why I’m sitting here writing about it. 

Of course, this isn’t the first time the breath has been knocked out of me by on screen actions. It’s different when you know what you’re going into, or watching a film which contains death or grief in the plot line that you’re already aware of. But it’s when it catches you off guard that it feels unbearable. It’s like sprinkling sugar all over your cereal, only to find out it’s salt (but way worse, obviously). I’ve never been one for surprises, but in my dead-dad-state, I have an even lower tolerance for them. 

I find it funny that horror films with plenty of blood and guts often come with a warning to viewers of ‘disturbing scenes’. I used to be terrified of horror films (being cursed with the gift of imagination and over-thinking) but now I just find them ridiculous. The most disturbing scenes are the ones which could actually be possible. We should be saving the warnings for the ones which hit where it really hurts—realistic depictions.

So spare a thought for any of your grieving friends who sat through that episode unprepared. Please make sure to check in with them. And what do you think—should TV and film come with grief warnings? Answers on a postcard.