Introduction: How Do We Watch the Trauma of Others?
In an age saturated with visual media, we are constantly bombarded by images from across the world. Some make us cry, others unsettle or disturb us, even push us away. Our emotional responses are easily shaped—if not controlled—by sound design, editing rhythm, and framing choices, often without our conscious awareness.
I will never forget the first time I watched Irreversible (2002), directed by Gaspar Noé. The nearly ten-minute-long rape scene in an underground passage was unbearable. The camera remains fixed, the audio is out of breath, and the director’s choices force the viewer into a position where escape is impossible—we are made to witness the violence without distance. It was an experience filled with fear and panic, and I knew immediately after watching that I would never revisit it.
However, it was precisely this experience that made me more consciously reflect on my position as a viewer. Watching is never a neutral act of simply "seeing"; the creators' decisions have already shaped every image we encounter. Where the camera is placed, when to cut, what kind of sound to overlay—these choices guide us in how to look, how to feel, and even how to understand what is presented as “truth.”
The portrayal of trauma as a central motif in visual media is far from new. Whether it involves depictions of war trauma, sexual violence, torture, or childhood abuse, the list of films and television series engaging with such themes is extensive. Precisely because trauma has become so frequently represented in visual and narrative forms, there has been growing critical attention to the ethical and aesthetic dimensions of these portrayals. When trauma is repeatedly transformed into image and story, we must ask: Does such representation truly convey the essence of suffering, or does it risk commodifying and simplifying the experience?
As Kaplan and Wang note in Trauma and Cinema: Cross-Cultural Explorations, "Narratives and images designed to represent traumas are viewed with suspicion, for they seem to have the seductive power to gloss over the horrendous fact and to distort the literal truth of trauma." (2004, p. 8). There is also concern that certain aesthetic strategies might dilute the intensity of real traumatic experiences, depending on how they are presented. Caruth (1996, p. 4) reminds us that trauma is not immediately accessible to consciousness; rather, it resurfaces later through involuntary symptoms—nightmares, compulsive repetitions—as an event too overwhelming to be fully grasped when it initially occurred. This inaccessibility adds another layer of complexity to trauma when it becomes the emotional and structural core of a work. In such cases, the viewer’s position becomes more ambiguous. Are we merely witnesses to another’s pain, or do we, in some way, become participants in the reproduction of this narrative?
Fortunately, the viewer is not a blank vessel waiting to be filled with meaning. Rather, we are active interpreters who bring their memories, emotions, and experiences into the act of watching. As Jacques Rancière argues in The Emancipated Spectator, “Being a spectator is not some passive condition that we should transform into activity. We also learn and teach, act and know, as spectators who all the time link what we see to what we have seen and said, done and dreamed.” (2011, p.16-17). I propose that the meaning of images is ultimately activated not by the maker alone, but through the viewer’s internal processes of perception and transformation. This experiential engagement—subjective, embodied, and often unpredictable—gives the image with its fullest resonance. Grounded in this viewer-oriented framework, this article focuses on two representative television series: the British drama I May Destroy You (2020) and the Taiwanese political drama Wave Makers (2023). Both works explore the representation of sexual violence and trauma through their distinct audio-visual strategies. This blog focuses on not only how these narratives represent traumatic experience, but also how they position the viewer in relation to such content. This journey into difficult subject matter may be unsettling at times, but I approach it with the hope of accompanying the audience, offering critical tools, emotional resonance, and a space for ethical reflection as we confront and make sense of these powerful images.
Reference
- Kaplan, E.A. and Wang, B. (2004) Trauma and cinema : cross-cultural explorations. Pbk. ed. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
- Caruth, C. (1996) Unclaimed experience : trauma, narrative, and history. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
- Rancière, J. (2011) The Emancipated Spectator. London: Verso.
