Philadelphia - Depictions of explicit and graphic suicides in movies tripled from 1950 to 2006, according to an analysis of top-grossing films.
The report, by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, was published in the August issue of Archives of Suicide Research. It found no difference between PG-13- and R-rated films in the most explicit portrayals of suicide.
Lead author Patrick E. Jamieson said that although it's impossible to establish a causal connection, the tripling of U.S. teen suicide since 1960 has coincided with the increase in movie suicide portrayals. The results, based on an analysis of 855 top-grossing films and released Tuesday, indicate the need for further study of the effects of movie suicides on adolescent audiences, the authors concluded.
According to the article, as part of the study the researchers took the top 30 movies from 1950 to 2006 and noted all of the references to suicide. Then they develop an "explicitness scale" which ranged from merely a verbal reference to a graphic depiction. What they discovered was that suicidal references in the movies increased with time. Also, there was no apparent difference between movies rated PG-13 or rated R. The article suggests more research on this is needed.
As I spent the last two days mulling this over since my initial reading of the article, I think we could talk about this topic at length. But at the least, the increased depiction of suicide in the movies may be a window into the level of hope (or lack thereof) in our culture. I'm still processing this one.
What do any of you think about this?
No comments:
Post a Comment