VIOLENT MOVIE TALK HAS GREATLY INCREASED OVER 50 YEARS

Researchers from the University of Maryland, University of Pennsylvania, and Ohio State University examined movie subtitles spanning five decades, from 1970 to 2020, to track how often movie characters discuss murder and killing. What they found was, people in crime movies reference murderous dialogue, as you’d expect, but even non-crime films show a clear upward trend in violent words. The researchers, looking at 166,534 movies over 50 years, found “increases in violence cross all genres.” They found that references to killing and murder in movie dialogue not only occur far more frequently than in real life but are also increasing over time. This suggests that casual discussion of lethal violence has become more normalized across all types of movies, potentially contributing to what researchers call “mean world syndrome” – where heavy media consumption leads people to view the world as more dangerous and threatening than it actually is.
* More dangerous and threatening than it actually is? Did all those researchers miss the news out of New Orleans on New Year’s Day? Morons!
* I’m more concerned with the drastic increase of dancing-in-the-kitchen scenes. Every damn movie that doesn’t have the word “Chainsaw” in the title has a dancing-in-the-kitchen scene.
* And while we’re at it, can we stop with the singing and dancing in pharmaceutical commercials? No one in this country sings and dances because they’re taking a medication that’s $350 a pill and not covered by their insurance. Especially when it has a list of 30 or 40 side effects.
* A lot of non-crime movies have violent words in the titles:
– Harry Potter and the DEATHLY Hallows
– AKILLah and the Bee
– Sh-WRECK
– Chitty Chitty BANG! BANG!