Trigger Warning
Trigger Warning Ahead
“Health Class,” that’s what we called it back then. Calling it “Sex-Ed” would have meant saying “sex” numerous times. Our school wasn’t going there.
My 11th grade health class teacher was Mr. Seaman. No joke. But that’s not today’s story. I want to take you back to 10th grade when our health teacher was the football coach.
Coach liked films. We liked films. Good times.
Most of the films seemed to have the object of scaring us into straightening up and flying right. However, none of these exercises in gore and gross came with a disclaimer until The Birth of a Baby.
One day Coach appeared before us shifting from foot to foot. “The film we are going to watch today has some pretty disturbing footage,” warned the man who had blithely shown us dismembered accident victims. “If at any point it’s too much and you want to stand in hall till it’s over, that’s just fine.”
Way to sell your audience, Coach! We leaned in.
The Birth of a Baby, an educational film on childbearing, was released in 1938 to instantaneous banning in several states. Where it was shown, it was often done so over the objections of local censors and citizens groups.
When Life magazine ran a story on the film (April 11, 1938), including stills from the birth scene, it earned the issue’s banning as well. Life’s editor, Roy E. Larsen, was arrested on obscenity charges only to be unanimously acquitted shortly thereafter.
In response to the obscenity charges, the New Yorker ran a satire by E.B. White, The Birth of an Adult, illustrated by Rea Irvin.
When the film was re-released in 1947, the Los Angeles Times (July 18, 1947) reported it a success but noted, due to the subject matter, “forty a day keel over.”
Of course, nearly as many years after the release as the number of daily fainters (yes, purposefully vague), we knew none of this. We just knew something terrible lay ahead.
There we were, deep in the drama, riveted by the delivery scene — the girls all promising ourselves we would never, ever, ever get pregnant (doubtless the hoped for effect of the screening)— when a strapping schoolmate jumped out of his chair and rushed headlong for the door. He was probably trying to reach the hall before he puked. But he missed. He ran head first into the door jamb and knocked himself out cold.
A memorable class! Birth and first aid!
Coach’s heads up didn’t really help that guy. But, it was still the considerate thing to do. There were a lot of green gills that day, especially among the boys. Perhaps we would have had more than one casualty without the preamble.
And that’s the story of my first trigger warning.
Thank you to Turner Classic Movies for the background info on The Birth of a Baby.
