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Do movies contain more violence than before?

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Onscreen use of verbs such as ‘kill’ and ‘murder’ has increased significantly over the decades, according to researchers.

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Far from being confined to action films and horror-thrillers, use of ‘murderous verbs’ is present in all movie genres, a new study points out. (Envato Elements pic)

Do today’s movies contain more violence? So suggests a study published in the scientific journal Jama Pediatrics, which investigated the presence of violence in movie productions over the past 50 years by analysing film subtitles.

The researchers examined dialogue from over 160,000 English-language films produced between 1970 and 2020, focusing on the use of verbs such as “kill” or “murder” in the screenplays. And the results are clear: violence in movie dialogue has increased significantly over the decades.

“Our findings suggest 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 is more evidence that violence is a bigger part of the movies we watch than ever before,” lead author Babak Fotouhi explained.

Far from being confined to action films and horror-thrillers, “murderous verbs” are also present in all film genres, the study points out.

“Characters in non-crime movies are also talking more about killing and murdering today than they did 50 years ago,” said co-researcher Brad Bushman. “Not as much as characters in crime movies, and the increase hasn’t been as steep – but it is still happening. We found increases in violence across all genres.”

While these “murderous” terms are mostly used by male characters, female characters are increasingly beginning to adopt this language. Here, too, the trend is on the rise, and it could be winning over viewers.

On social networks, “female rage” content is captivating internet users for its representation of female anger in movies and TV shows. On TikTok, the hashtag #femalerage has accumulated more than 100,000 posts, in addition to thousands on Instagram.

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