think you’re keeping little sally or joey unsullied from violent episodes by only letting them watch the latest animated disney film? think again:
“All 74 films reviewed contained at least 1 act of violence (mean duration, 9.5 minutes per film; range, 6 seconds–24 minutes). Analysis of time trends showed a statistically significant increase in
the duration of violence in the films with time (P=.001). The study found a total of 125 injuries (including 62 fatal injuries) in 46 (62%) of the films. Characters portrayed as “bad” were much more likely to die
of an injury than other characters (odds ratio, 23.2; 95% confidence interval, 8.5-63.4). A majority of the violence (55%) was associated with good or neutral characters dueling with bad characters (ie, using
violence as a means of reaching resolution of conflict), and characters used a wide range of weapons in violent acts.”“Our content analysis suggests that a significant amount of violence exists in animated G-rated feature films. Physicians and parents should not overlook videocassettes as a source of exposure to violence for children.”
this is not to say that i’m exactly sure there’s any sort of direct causal link between exposure to violence and standing in a crowd with automatic weapons. at the same time i’m not saying that there isn’t some-sort of complicated relationship between exposure and action.
i do know that it makes me pretty uneasy to see ten-year-olds in “gladiator” [ which sucks – trust salon on this one]