Traumawarnings are multiplying, while studies have concluded that they are ineffective. These warnings that the content could be sensitive, irritating or trigger disturbing reactions are now proliferating in the arts world, a realm of emotional upheaval and aesthetic shock. Museums, literature classes, books, shows, operas warn their visitors, readers and spectators. Look, in a series of texts, on this phenomenon of trigger warningsor TW for short.
Traumawarnings and sensitive warnings are new to Quebec editions. They are still almost absent in France, according to the observations of Mathilde Barraband, co-holder of the Collective Chair of Franco-Quebec research on freedom of expression. However, literature on both sides of the ocean has been using another warning for decades, she notes. It’s the “any resemblance to actual people and situations is purely coincidental”. Do you recognize him? Focus on a legal-looking warning.
Mme Barraband does not know where and when exactly this pseudo-legal warning and its variations appeared. The specialist has seen them spread, from France, with the increase in literary trials. Two are pivotal: first, at the end of the 1990s, that for defamation won by the far-right French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen against the writer Mathieu Lindon, author of the book… The trial of Jean-Marie Le Pen(it can’t be invented!). The author and the publisher, POL, will be condemned years later to pay 2300 euros (3288 $CA) in fines and 3800 euros (5433 $CA) in damages.
Then, in 2006, Philippe Besson and Grasset editions were found guilty of invasion of privacy for having appropriated, in the child of october (2006), parts of the Villemin affair, a sordid childhood crime, and 15,000 euros (21,450 $CA) in damages must be paid to the parents of the victim.
In the case of these trials as in others, the fact that this kind of warnings without any real legal significance were of no use does not prevent them from spreading. And, according to M.me Barraband, the reason is very simple: “In the community, we see these warnings more as a way to draw attention to the fact that the text is inspired by real events, which interests the readership, she continues. Or to say that the text is linked to a story that has already caused much ink to flow. They are seen more as selling points. »
The limit books
Literary trials are much more numerous in France than here, says the one whose job is to compare the state of freedom of expression in the two territories. “I believed for a very long time that it was a cultural difference, because we are here in a culture of mediation. »
“But, one day, I am equipped with my calculator. I think it’s a strict question of volume of publications, specifies the specialist in censorship and creation. If there are 1,000 stories published here in a season, there are 10,000 in France. And we don’t have case law here: we’ve only had one trial in the last twenty years, whereas in France there are about thirty. »
In France, it is the issues of defamation and invasion of privacy that are on trial. “It’s civil law, it’s people protecting their privacy or their reputation. »
“Here, it’s the Yvan Godbout affair, on the Hansel and Gretel (2017), for child pornography representations. It is criminal law, that is, an offense for which the state prosecutes in order to protect us all. The reasoning of the judges will not be the same in this case. »
The trial around this book, which was part of the Forbidden Tales collection of the AdA publishing house, ultimately did not take place. “The law has been declared unconstitutional. If there had been a trial, excerpts of texts would most likely have been declared illegal. And even if the publisher and the author had issued a warning, it would not have protected them: the content would still be illegal. »
Mathilde Barraband predicts that if sensitivity warnings and trauma warnings break through in France, it will be through children’s literature. “What we observe, in general, in the legalization of art, is that the protection of youth has often become a pretext for the re-establishment of a certain surveillance of art. »
Creation is free, like expression, analysis Mme Barraband, “provided you don’t abuse it. There is a whole series of abuses, from incitement to hatred, through intellectual property and invasion of privacy, to name a few, that come to delineate them. Expression is free, but… Creation is the same thing.”
There is always a “but” that sets the limit. Whether we warn or not.