Violence Movies talk more about murder and killing

When violence is shown in a movie, it captures the audience's attention. Filmmakers know this - and, according to a new study, are apparently using it more and more.

"She killed him!" Phrases like this are used in many films, not just crime thrillers. A new study comes to the conclusion that "murdering" and "killing" are being used more and more frequently in English-language films. The study was published in the specialist journal "Jama Pediatrics".

For their calculations, the researchers from the USA looked at the subtitles of more than 160,000 films from the years 1970 to 2020, from which they determined the proportion of "murderous verbs", i.e. words such as "kill" and "murdered". These words were increasingly used in all films, i.e. across all genres.

A surprising result of the study was also that both male and female film roles spoke more frequently about murder and killing over time, explained lead author Babak Fotouhi from the University of Maryland. Nevertheless, female roles talked less about it overall.

Inferring from the language to the images

Overall, the "murderous verbs" appeared in seven percent of the films. "It is likely that there was more violence in the films than we calculated in terms of dialog," said Fotouhi.

In any case, the study is further proof that violence plays a greater role in films than ever before. This is because the language indicates that more violent behavior is also shown. According to the authors, however, it is incredibly time-consuming to evaluate the behavior shown in the image for so many films.

"The film industry is a highly competitive market in which studios compete for the finite resource of attention by using elements that most effectively engage audiences. Violence is one of the most frequently used elements," the researchers conclude.

According to co-author Brad Bushman from Ohio State University, it is still unclear whether this trend will continue. "The findings suggest that it is highly unlikely that we have reached a peak." However, the depiction of violence in the media has health consequences for children and adults, according to the study. Media literacy should therefore be promoted as a matter of urgency.

SDA