I’ve been noticing something over the years.
There’s a strange assumption in modern culture that discomfort is something to be cured.
If a piece of entertainment unsettles you — not because it’s badly made, but because it dwells on cruelty, degradation, or sexualized violence — the problem isn’t the content.
The problem is you.
You’re told you’re prudish. Too sensitive. Out of touch.
As if moral recoil were a personality flaw instead of a human response.
What makes this more confusing is that the shows in question are often praised as serious, bold, or prestige. High production values. Strong acting. Complex storytelling. And yet, woven into that craft is an insistence that brutality must be lingered on — not merely shown, but framed as immersive experience.
At some point, the line between depicting evil and savoring it gets blurred.
And that’s where the divide appears.
Not a divide of taste — but of values.
Some viewers experience this material as realism. Others experience it as corrosive. The difference isn’t intelligence or sophistication. It’s what the mind is willing to normalize in the name of entertainment.
What’s striking is how quickly moral resistance is pathologized.
Discomfort isn’t engaged. It’s dismissed.
Why is that?
Because if someone pauses long enough to ask whether certain things should be entertaining, the spell breaks. The camera angle matters. The pacing matters. The intent matters. And once those questions surface, the content can’t hide behind the excuse of “just a show” anymore.
A culture that treats revulsion as immaturity will eventually lose the ability to recognize when something has gone too far. Not because lines disappeared — but because they were mocked out of existence.
What is accepted as prime time entertainment today would have been rated X in the 1980s.
There’s also a quiet pressure at work — the old peer-pressure dynamic in a modern form. If everyone else can tolerate it, then tolerance becomes a social requirement. Refusal looks like judgment. Stepping away looks like weakness. Drawing a boundary looks like a critique — even when none is spoken.
But boundaries aren’t accusations.
They’re declarations of conscience.
Saying “I can’t sit with this” is not the same as saying “you shouldn’t watch it.” One is self-knowledge. The other is control. Confusing the two is how honest disagreement gets flattened into name-calling.
The deeper issue isn’t what’s on the screen.
It’s what we’re training ourselves to absorb without flinching.
Sometimes the most meaningful moral statement isn’t outrage or boycott or debate.
Sometimes it’s simply getting up and leaving the room.
I’m Wayne — and that’s my world view. What’s yours?
