Movie rating standards

Photo by: Will Gentry

 

Blockbuster movies and gun violence seem to go hand in hand. The most violent movies are some of the most popular and the amount of violence has increased.

According to the study “Gun Violence Trends in Movies,” published recently in the Journal of the Academy of American Pediatrics, since 1950 violence in films has more than doubled. Since 1985 gun violence in PG-13 films has more than tripled to where PG-13 films now contain as much or more violence as R-rated films.

“Violence is always the one thing you don’t care about it seems,” Caleb Henry, a junior at Oklahoma Christian University, said.

The study identified the amount of violence of the 30 highest-grossing films since 1950 and noted the presence of guns and how they were used in violent segments of the films since 1985, the first full year the PG-13 rating was used.

The PG-13 rating of the Motion Picture Association of America cautions parents that the film may be inappropriate for children under 13 years of age. Keith Musgrove, a resident director, said many PG-13- films are not suitable for 13-year-olds at all.

“I feel like a lot of PG-13 movies should be viewed by eyes that are 18 or above,” Musgrove said. “I think it should be for people who are more mature.”

Henry believes the rating system is faulted, not with the age of ratings but how the films are rated.

“There are very few movies that are rated PG-13 that if I had a kid I’d let him see at 13,” Henry said. “I think they need to rate movies harder than they are.”

The study suggests that the increase of violence and the presence of guns in films could escalate the effects violent films have on aggression. How much aggression is escalated and the effects of it is disputed.

David Lowry, professor of communication and dean of the college of arts and sciences, said there is a link between watching violence on the screen and imitating it.

“The early modeling studies showed when very young boys and girls watched things that had violence in them, they became more aggressive,” Lowry said.

However, seeing the violence doesn’t continue to have the same effect.

“I think as [children] get older and have more socialization from their parents, schools and churches, that that’s not the case,” Lowry said. “What we do believe is that people become more desensitized to violence. What that means is that our ability to be shocked by violence appears to be lessened.”

Desensitization to violence could be just as damaging, according to Musgrove.

“For me and my wife, we don’t really like very many things that have to do with violence,” Musgrove said. “I feel like kids are less sensitized to guns. It’s easier to not see people as human. It takes the realness of being able to connect and being able to have relationships. It takes that advantage away.”

This effect can be reversed, however.

“I’m always amazed as to just how shocked people are when violence occurs to them,” Lowry said. “We’ve become less sensitized to violence towards others, but if something happens to us, then suddenly we’re sort of shocked back into reality about the nature of violence.”

Some people suggest that violence portrayed in media has led to a more violent society.

“There has always been shootings and stuff that has happened,” Henry said. “… but I still think more of it is happening. We also hear about [violence] a lot more than we did.”

Lowry said society isn’t necessarily more or less violent but plagued with problems.

“We create a mindset in our culture that violence is an acceptable answer to world problems,” Lowry said. “We believe that the only way you can solve some problems is through violence. It’s called redemptive violence.”

Violence portrayed in media doesn’t quite have as strong of an effect as some suggest. According to Lowry, what makes a person violent is complicated.

“There are so many factors that go into making a person of violence,” Lowry said. “In the whole scheme of things [television and movies] are not as big as whether or not a person feels that they’re being bullied, or whether or not a person is emotionally abused by their friends or parents. All these factors have way more predictive value than just the media.”

Media can contribute to violence in society though.

“In a population of 350 million people there’s always going to be somebody who can be persuaded to do something based upon having watched a TV show,” Lowry said. “There’s always that one in a million person. When they do it we all know about it.”

Ultimately, what children watch falls onto the parents’ responsibility.

“It up to the parents to have their kids watch what they want them to watch, and for kids to respect their parents enough to watch what their parents let them watch,” Henry said.

Parents should educate their children on the effect of violence and guns, Musgrove said.

“Parents have a responsibility to want to teach their kids the difference between what is good, what is bad and how to approach violence and how it influences us especially through movies,” Musgrove said.

Lowry believes education is the key to reducing violence.

“I think the reason we have violence at all is because people are so poor at knowing how to handle interpersonal difficulties that they resort to it out of frustration,” Lowry said.

“We need to teach peace, non-violent communication and I think we need to teach how to solve our problem without redemptive violence.”

According to Lowry everyone can become peacemakers and solve problems without violence.

“Right now we see that as the realm of people like Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and the saviors like Jesus Christ or Buddha or something like that,” Lowry said. “None of us actually believe that we could do that, but we can actually teach people these skills. You don’t have to be that once-in-every-millennium person that sets the example for the rest of us. It should be the norm.”