

Percentage of top grossing US films by decade that depict killing  - calvinf
http://blog.jgc.org/2010/08/percentage-of-top-grossing-us-films-by.html

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pchristensen
Wow, I got it totally wrong. When I read this in my RSS, I read "firms"
instead of films and I was wondering what all these businesses were doing
portraying killing.

Then when I read the title correctly on HN, I remembered the graph going
downward and thought it was weird that films were showing less killing. I
clicked through and was surprised to see that the x-axis was _descending_
chronological order.

So now that I finally get the graph, let me throw out a WAG: with the end of
the military draft, the almost complete departure of workers from agriculture,
and increasing safety in society, violence of any form and especially death is
_not a real part of most peoples' lives_. It is therefore fair game for
fantasy and storytelling because there is little negative emotional experience
attached to it, but there _is_ a high degree of novelty.

~~~
thetrumanshow
I was expecting the graph to descend chronologically myself. It seemed to me
that every other movie that I remember from 80s and early 90s were slasher
films (Krueger, 13th, Critters, Steven King movies). Now, its romantic
comedies left and right.

... or maybe I just got married.

------
diiq
As martijn points out in the comments, no conclusions can be drawn without
data about the pool of all movies.

If it makes you feel better about the world, _actual_ murders per capita is
not significantly higher now than it was in the 1960's; I guess we've all
figured out that life lessons don't come from blockbuster movies --- just fun
explosions.

~~~
anamax
> actual murders per capita is not significantly higher now than it was in the
> 1960's

As of 2010, US murder rates are significantly higher than they were in 1960.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States>

Violent crime increased significantly in the 60s, 70s and 80s, peaking about
1990. Since then they've dropped somewhat, but we're still at somewhere around
1975 levels.

~~~
CapitalistCartr
The actual article you linked to says, "Overall, the crime rate in the U.S.
was the same in 2004 as in 1969, with the homicide rate being roughly the same
as in 1966." As the subject is the homicide rate, that seems the most relevant
datum.

~~~
Retric
The largest difference between 1960 and now is reported sexual crimes.
Unfortunately they are so under reported it's hard to compare different time
periods.

Edit: _The year 2005 was overall the safest year in the past thirty years._

PS: You can get an idea based on the % of serial rapist victims that report at
a later date, but that's extremely unreliable.

~~~
anamax
30 years from 2005 is 1975....

1969, let alone 1975, was considerably more violent than 1960.

Go to
[http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/dataonline/Search/Crime/State/State...](http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/dataonline/Search/Crime/State/StatebyState.cfm)
select all states and violent crime rates and the push "get table".

You'll see that the murder rate in 1960 was 5.1. By 1969, it had jumped to
7.3. By 75 it was 9.6. It peaked at 10.2 in 1980 with a lesser peak at 9.8 in
1991.

By 2005 the murder had dropped to 5.6. (FWIW, 2004 was 5.5) 2008 was 5.4,
which is still above 1960's 5.1

~~~
Retric
Above the rate for the year 1960, but not the rate for the decade 1960's.
Still, 5.1 vs. 5.4 for such a rare and random event is not particularly
meaningful. Also you need to adjust the numbers to compare the same thing. EX:
If you compare manslaughter between 1961 and now a similar drunk driving
accident would have a different outcome.

PS: I work with these numbers all the time. Murder is for lack of a better
term the least reactive crime type, compared to say assault it far less
influence by things like age, education, and gender etc.

~~~
anamax
> Above the rate for the year 1960, but not the rate for the decade 1960's.

My point is that the rates were changing so much during the 60s and 70s that
speaking of averages loses too much information. 1960 and 1969 were very
different as far as violence in the US is concerned.

> 5.1 vs. 5.4 for such a rare and random event is not particularly meaningful.

It's frequent enough to be statistically significant. We're not talking about
the difference between 1 and 2 incidents in a population of 1M, we're talking
about 10k incidents in a population of 180M.

The advantage of talking about murder (which includes manslaughter) as opposed
to rape and drunk driving is that reporting isn't a big problem - the only
argument is over the circumstance of death.

~~~
Retric
Do you really think the probability of someone that caused a fatal accident
with a low BAC being charged with manslaughter was the same in 1960 and 2005?

As to being significant looking at different crime rates you tend to see
similar trends but the "peak" year is often different. You can try to
interpret it to mean something, but the reality is your looking at an
imprecise estimate of an imprecise estimates of a highly random event it's
really vary random after the first digit.

    
    
      1991 Forcible rape 106,593 
      1992 Forcible rape 109,062
      1991 Robbery 687,732
      1992 Robbery 672,478
    

Now look at which crimes rates up vs down from 1992 to 1993 etc.

~~~
anamax
> but the reality is your looking at an imprecise estimate of an imprecise
> estimates of a highly random event it's really vary random after the first
> digit.

Your assertion would be more convincing if your anecdote was had variance in
the second position. Instead, it has variance in the third position (1065 and
1090) and less than half a unit in the second position (6877 and 6725)

The murder/manslaughter numbers are varying by 4-6x as much. (5.1 to 5.3/5.4)

~~~
Retric
My point was, you can ask questions like: Which was the peek year for crime?
Why did rape not follow that trend? etc etc.

    
    
      Downward trend: - 2.2%
      1991 Robbery 687,732 
      1992 Robbery 672,478
    
      Upward trend: + 2.3%
      1991 Forcible rape 106,593
      1992 Forcible rape 109,062
    

Edit: By second digit I was talking about % change, (1065 and 1090) = 2.3%
change as is 90 and 92.07. Clearly saying 98 to 99 is a change in the second
digit where 100 and 109 is a change in the third is missing something.

However, X + 2% vs Y - 2% does not necessarily mean anything. If you want to
understand people you need to look beyond any single year to find cause and
effect.

PS: A heatwave can significantly change a city's crime rate, but on it's own
there is no meaningful long term effect. Average things out over months and
years and you can start to see meaning emerge from chaos.

~~~
anamax
> My point was, you can ask questions like: Which was the peek year for crime?
> Why did rape not follow that trend?

"What was the peak year for crime" assumes a definition of crime, a way to
aggregate rape, murder, etc. While we can agree on one, that agreement isn't
binding on others. That's why I didn't claim that there was a peak crime year.

That said, averaging the 60s doesn't make sense as there was too much change.

Demographics alone tell us that different kinds of crime will peak a different
times.

> By second digit I was talking about % change,

Since I was talking about to 5.1 to 5.4, the 98/99 comparison isn't especially
relevant.

> A heatwave can significantly change a city's crime rate, but on it's own
> there is no meaningful long term effect.

You're assuming that weather doesn't have trends or long term effects. I'd
argue that the dust bowl did. Urban heat-islands cause persistent heatwaves.
(Yes, that's artificial climate, but ....)

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anigbrowl
What is there to conclude, other than that people are more tolerant of killing
being portrayed in films? After 1980, there's an inverse correlation between
the frequency of murder or violent crime in the US and depiction of killing in
film - the former goes down while the latter continues to increase.
(<http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm>)

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pvg
It's a silly and misleading graph.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Production_Code>

Alternatively watch something like Howard Hughes's Hell's Angels (1930)

~~~
mechanical_fish
It is lots of fun reading through the pre-Code movie synopses:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_Face_(film)>

Sex and violence are not some kind of radical new idea. The shape of the OP's
graph is almost certainly caused by the censors of the mid-20th century.

------
twp
The lesson taught in almost every movie is that your problems are only
permanently solved by the death of your action antagonist. Even kids' movies
have this lesson, e.g. A Bug's Life where the bad-guy grasshopper is eaten by
a bird. There are few movies where the action antagonist does not die, and
these invariably involve morally ambiguous lead characters (e.g. The Dark
Knight).

It's shame that more conciliatory outcomes are not considered. And you wonder
about youth violence, but if this is the message taught by every film what do
you expect?

P.S. counter examples please!

~~~
machrider
> And you wonder about youth violence, but if this is the message taught by
> every film what do you expect?

The facts don't bear this out, despite how often it's repeated. Real world
violence is not proportional to violence in movies (or video games for that
matter).

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tmsh
I think this gets at the distance between US culture, as it were, and the
realities of violence. War is not the only source of violence. But it is a big
one, which affects the entire culture pretty significantly.

So the 70s correspond to Vietnam. And the 40s correspond to WWII. Today, we
also have wars. But we are somehow increasingly disconnected from the
realities of what that means.

Anyway, it's a nice chart. But if you ever watch old movies right after WWII
(in the 40s, early 50s), you can almost feel the trepidation around anything
but those undervalued, safe moral environments. In some ways, it's a more
mature audience / understanding -- it's more focused. But because a lot of the
country has seen real horrors, it seems like now they crave some kind of
careful normalcy (which doesn't have much violence). Perhaps the 70s also had
that incentive. A lot of social change and some violence in the late 60s
might've prompted it. Or, alternatively, people actually might've believed in
non-violence for a while, and that might've stimulated other subjects.

I don't know. But obviously, according to the chart, it's a self-perpetuating
phenomenon. So this can be explained by saying that US culture (perhaps
increasingly in the form of high grossing films), left to its own status quo
momentum, gradually disconnects us from the realities of violence.

~~~
MC27
I tend to think modern US blockbusters, are heavily influenced by special
effects rather than characters, which usually means killing lots of stuff.

------
afterburner
So more lenient movie moral codes wrt censorship and larger budgets for
action, combined with a growing expertise in stunts and fight choreography,
and a growing movie industry eager to entice audiences into theatres with
blockbuster escapist theatre, result in a greater percentage?

There, I drew my own conclusion. Provided the data is true.

------
cellularmitosis
my brain wants very badly for the data to flow chronologically from left to
right, rather than its current arrangement.

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shrikant
_If you enjoyed this blog post, you might enjoy my travel book for people
interested in science and technology: The Geek Atlas_

Is that a boilerplate footer for every blog post? Because I didn't really see
the connection between gore in movies and the book :)

------
code_duck
So, killing animals that can't "speak" doesn't count? That's odd, I'd pay good
money to see people slaughtering those obnoxious anthropomorphic CG animals
Hollywood is so in love with.

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callmeed
It would be interesting to see if a similar curve exists for movies depicting
sex (not necessarily nudity).

------
mrkurt
Big budgets mean big ticket sales. They also mean action. Thus, killing.

~~~
protomyth
Let's look at the top 10 (I will use US sales): Avatar (2009) - Yep, Titanic
(1997)- Yep, The Dark Knight (2008) - Yep, Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope
(1977) - Yep, Shrek 2 (2004) - Nope, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) -
Nope, Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) - Yep, Pirates of the
Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) - Yep, Spider-Man (2002) - Yep,
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) - Yep

So 9 for 10

~~~
pyre
I count 8:

    
    
      Avatar (2009) - Yep
      Titanic (1997) - Yep
      The Dark Knight (2008) - Yep
      Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) - Yep
      Shrek 2 (2004) - Nope
      E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) - Nope
      Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) - Yep
      Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) - Yep
      Spider-Man (2002) - Yep
      Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) - Yep

~~~
jerf
Shrek 2 might be borderline. The giant gingerbread man bites it, and while he
is depicted as a moron, he does speak.

~~~
protomyth
yeah, I switched Shrek from yes to no and forgot to update the count - I am a
little iffy on the sentientence of the Giant Gingerbread Man.

~~~
protomyth
I have been reminded that the fairy godmother gets blown up. So 9 for 10.

So, it looks like the top US grossers only 1 was made without showing someone
being killed.

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gojomo
Can similar percentages be calculated for cursing, sex, blasphemy, atomic-
mutated monsters? (At least one of those probably peaked in the late 50s.)

------
zokier
Could some correlation be with average age of movie-goers?

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mhb
How did the author know which depict killing?

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sabj
What will happen after 100%?

~~~
Tichy
Erasure of social media presences?

~~~
code_duck
What does that mean? Scoble massacred in 3D?

~~~
Tichy
Not only killing somebody, but canceling their Facebook account. As if they
never existed.

~~~
code_duck
I absolutely hate Facebook and the idiots who have made it popular. It sounds
like I may not exist.

