Bill Maher recently slammed the idea of trigger warnings, stating that they were a reminder of just "how weak" the United States has become.
During the closing segment of his show Real Time on Friday (March 3), the 67-year-old went on a scathing rant about how trigger warnings are basically useless and how they actually "make it worse" for people who the warnings are meant for, comparing them to a "seat belt made of broken glass."
"A trigger warning is a kind of 'Close your eyes, here comes an ouchie,'" he said. "That, like so many bad ideas in recent years, got started on college campuses. Students started demanding them so they could get ready in case something a book, or a piece of art, or a history lesson reminded them that life included bad things and not just good, and sometimes, people were mean."
He joked: "You can't have that just sprung on ya!"
And his tirade didn't stop there.
He then turned his attention to universities and slammed them for compiling lists of words and phrases that should be banned or retired including "you guys," "white paper," "peanut gallery," "insane" and "virgin."
"Virgin? We can't say virgin? As opposed to what, 'person experiencing not getting laid'?" Maher questioned. "You would think that one would take the cake for their oversensitivity, but the students at Brandeis said, 'Hold my baby bottle.'
"They made a list of expressions they don't want to hear it because they remind them of violence — terms like 'killing it,' 'beating a dead horse' and yes, even 'trigger warning.' I guess they don't teach irony in college anymore."
The political talk show host then discussed how trigger warnings were cropping up almost everywhere, telling the audience how they were added to movies such as Dumbo and Gone With the Wind.
He then recalled an anecdote in order to mock a theater in Brooklyn that warned customers to expect "moments of darkness and violence" for a production of the musical Oklahoma.
Maher continued: "My senior class in high school put on Oklahoma, and I thought it was corny and provincial then. I cannot imagine the fragility of someone who needs to be warned about it. How did these people get to the airport, let alone through childhood?"
"London's Globe Theatre felt the need to tell the audience that its production of Romeo and Juliet includes suicide. Okay, but Romeo and Juliet has been in your Netflix queue since 1596. You've had 400 years to prepare. And also, it just kind of gave away the ending. I don't understand how a society that so in love with spoiler alerts can also be into trigger warnings.
"'Tell me what's going to happen, but don't tell me!'"
The 67-year-old re-emphasized the idea that "all the research shows that these trigger warnings don't even work," before adding that all they do is double down on the idea that trauma is central to our identities, which seems to really frustrate the comedian.
"What they do is reinforce the idea that trauma is central to your identity, and that you should let it define you instead of dealing with, it dispatching it and moving beyond it," he stated. "People wonder why the younger generations have so much anxiety, it's this stuff! Lots of stuff makes us uncomfortable.
"You know what makes me uncomfortable? This bulls***. People who start every conversation with 'As a person who,' 'As a survivor of...'
"I'm triggered every time I see a trigger warning, because I'm reminded of how weak my country has become."
He compared it to "wearing a mask on your mind."
It was at the end though, where the host cranked it up a notch insisting that we'd "passed the point of parody," following a group of students in Australia who claimed we need to have warnings in place for "eye contact."
"...Eye contact?! Even the Taliban are okay with eye contact!"
Big yikes. He should have given a trigger warning before hitting us with that one.