If you think movies are getting more violent, you might be right, at least when it comes to what characters say. A large-scale study looking at the dialogue from over 166,000 films from 1970 to 2020 found a significant rise in the use of violent language, specifically words associated with killing. This increase isn’t just limited to action or crime films; it’s happening across all types of movies and involves both male and female characters speaking more violently over time. The research was published in JAMA Pediatrics.
Decades of research have demonstrated a link between exposure to violent content and increased aggressive behavior and thoughts. Watching violence in movies and television can lead people to imitate aggressive actions they see, become less sensitive to real-world violence, and feel less empathy for victims. Some researchers even suggest that excessive exposure to violent media can contribute to a “mean world syndrome,” where people start to believe that the world is a much more dangerous and violent place than it actually is. Recognizing these potential harms, numerous medical and scientific organizations around the world have issued warnings about the dangers of violent media for over half a century.
Given these concerns, it is important to understand how the amount of violence portrayed in media is changing over time. Previous studies have indicated an increase in on-screen violence. For example, research from 2013 found that the depiction of gun violence in top-grossing movies had more than doubled since 1950, and more than tripled in movies rated PG-13 since that rating category was introduced in 1985.
Building upon this existing research, a team of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and The Ohio State University wanted to investigate whether violent language in movies has also increased over time. They were particularly interested in seeing if this trend held true not only for crime movies, where violence is often a central theme, but also for movies across all genres. They also wanted to examine if the trends in violent language differed between male and female characters. To answer these questions, the researchers undertook a large-scale analysis of movie dialogue to track changes in violent speech over the past five decades.
“I have been doing violent media research for over 30 years,” noted Brad J. Bushman, a professor of communication at The Ohio State University.
To conduct their investigation, the researchers turned to a massive online database of movie subtitles called OpenSubtitles.org. This resource contains subtitles for a vast number of movies, providing a rich source of dialogue data. From this database, the team extracted subtitles for over 166,000 English-language movies released between 1970 and 2020.
Using these subtitles, they focused specifically on identifying dialogue that contained what they termed “murderous verbs.” This meant they looked for instances where characters spoke verbs related to killing or murdering, such as “kill,” “murder,” “slay,” “assassinate,” and similar words.
To accurately identify these “murderous verbs” and the characters associated with them, the researchers used sophisticated computer-based language analysis techniques. They employed a method called “dependency parsing” which helps to break down sentences and understand the grammatical relationships between words. This allowed them to identify verbs and determine who or what was performing the action described by the verb. They also used “part-of-speech tagging” to ensure they were correctly identifying verbs and not other types of words.
Importantly, they designed their analysis to be very specific and conservative. They only counted instances where characters were actively speaking about committing murder. They deliberately excluded passive constructions, such as “he was killed,” negations, like “she didn’t kill him,” and questions, for example, “Did he murder her?” By focusing only on direct statements of murderous intent or action, they aimed to get a clear and focused measure of violent language in movie dialogue.
The analysis revealed a clear trend: violent language in movies, specifically the use of “murderous verbs,” has significantly increased over the past five decades. Across all movies analyzed, nearly seven percent contained dialogue using these verbs related to killing.
When the researchers looked at the data year by year, they observed fluctuations from one year to the next, as might be expected. However, despite these yearly variations, the overall trend was unmistakably upward. Statistical analysis confirmed a significant and steady increase in the use of murderous verbs in movie dialogue from 1970 to 2020.
This increasing trend was not limited to crime movies, where violent language might be expected. Surprisingly, the researchers found a similar increase in the use of murderous verbs in movies that were not classified as crime films.
“In the past 50 years, murderous verbs in movies have increased by increased 1.7-fold, which is over 10 times more than in the English language overall,” Bushman told PsyPost. “In other words, the world depicted in movies is far more violent than the actual world.”
This trend held true for both male and female characters. While there were some minor differences in the patterns for male and female characters in crime movies specifically, the overarching finding was that violent language, as measured by “murderous verbs,” has become more prevalent in movie dialogue across genres and for characters of both genders over the last fifty years.
This finding reinforces previous research that used smaller datasets and also pointed towards an increase in movie violence over time, suggesting that the trend is robust and consistent across different ways of measuring violence in film.
“It is troubling that the use of violent verbs is increasing so much in movies, and that violence is viewed as entertainment,” Bushman said.
The researchers emphasized that by concentrating solely on “murderous verbs,” they were likely underestimating the total amount of violent language present in movies, as they were not including less extreme forms of violence or violent threats.
“Our results should be conservative. We computed the percent of murderous verbs calculated as the number of verbs from the roots ‘kill’ and ‘murder’ divided by the total number of verbs. We omitted passive constructions and negations, and questions.”
While this study provides valuable insights into trends in violent language in movies, it is important to acknowledge its limitations. The study focused solely on dialogue and specifically on dialogue. This means it did not capture other forms of violence depicted in movies, such as physical actions, visual depictions of violence, or less extreme forms of violent language.
Future research could expand upon this work by analyzing movie scripts to capture descriptions of physical violence and actions, which would provide a more comprehensive picture of violence in films. However, analyzing full scripts for such a massive number of movies is a very challenging task due to the sheer volume of data involved. Similarly, using computer algorithms to automatically detect violent actions from video data is currently very expensive and technically complex.
Looking ahead, the researchers suggest several important directions for future research. They emphasize the need to further explore the complex relationship between movies and culture. Movies can influence cultural norms and behaviors, but they also reflect existing societal trends, including violence. Understanding this two-way relationship is crucial.
The researchers also suggest that future studies could investigate the use of violent language in other forms of media to see if similar trends are present. Ultimately, the findings of this study underscore the continued need to promote media literacy and encourage mindful consumption of media, especially among children and vulnerable populations.
The study, “Trends of Violence in Movies During the Past Half Century,” was authored by Babak Fotouhi, Amir Tohidi, Rouzbeh Touserkani, and Brad J. Bushman.
