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BYU study: Teen movies contain fewer dirty words than in the past
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If my child decided to start swearing all the time it would be annoying, yea, but I'd prefer it to them having the moral code many teen-agers in movies have. They already think about sex all the time anyway, why give them the boost to think about it not only in their spare time, but also in the movie theatre? I'm not a mom yet, and I'm not that old. I'm far from what you'd call a "goody goody" or a "prude" but the constant sex jokes in movies that were considered "appropriate" for my age annoyed me and made me uncomfortable. Give me swearing any day.
//I am thinking about a group of BYU students, sitting in a dark room watching endless DVD's and counting profanities//
There are better things to do in a darkroom. I'm not talking about Photography. Hint Hint. Nudge Nudge. Wink Wink. Say no more!
Seriously, the best place to observe and count profanity is the east side of Cougar Stadium on a Saturday afternoon in the fall.
Dude, seriously. Did you get turned down for the cast of Pleasantville and that is why you are so bitter?
Its interesting that someone who uses the psuedonym (Look Ma! I can "use the google") you do raves on about morals & values.
Double entendres & innuendo in British comedies are second only to the wit of Groucho Marx.
re: Anonymous | 9:08 a.m. May 28, 2009
Don't rely on others to instill values in yourself, your kids, or society. Pony up, put down the blackberry, and actually moderate your own behavior or those you have stewardship over.
"If my son or daughter had been given this as "work", I would have already been on the phone with the administration to have him thrown out of there."
Right. Good luck with that...I can assure you that the administration does not make its decisions about granting continuing faculty status to its professors based on the rantings of mad (read that as a double entendre--angry and insane) parents. I work in an academic department at BYU, and it's parents like you who can't butt out of their adult children's lives that result in students being emotionally crippled, overly dependent, and unable to make their own way in the world. If this post represents how you actually would act in a real situation, then you are doing nothing but harming your children by your overbearing and ridiculous hovering. They are adults. Cut the apron strings and back off.
Students need to learn to act like grown ups and take care of themselves, but I think that so many of them are pampered and have huge egos and feelings of entitlement.
I would have to agree that mild swear words do appear much less, but in overall content I don't think they are cleaner. I imagine if I read the study they would probably propose some of their own theories for the drop, but I'll go back to the sports section now....
And point of clarification. Kids under 17 can't attend R-rated movies without parental permission. Multiple times I just called my parents while at the theater and they just told the employee it was fine for me to see the movie in question. Or I just had my girlfriend buy the tickets. No one would have believed she was under 17 if you know what a mean.
that was fantastic. you sum up the misguided assumptions of these commentors perfectly. Why people love to comdemn today's youth and society still perplexes me.
Well said.
Furthermore, anyone that seriuosly thinks a professor should be fired for suggesting a study like this should go back to their land of make believe and close their eyes and plug their ears until the rest of the world reaches their level of "maturity." Seriously, do graduate level students really need a permission slip from their mom and dad to see movies like Teen Wolf, Harry Potter, or Transformers? These issues are relevant and to ignore them would be irresponsible.
This study shares that current movies rated g, pg, and pg 13 have less verbal offensiveness and more violence than movies made 20 years ago.
The writers conjecture that it may be in response to veiwers, who are "putting pressure on Hollywood" to make movie language more family friendly.
So, now what? Do we actually want pg movies? Do we want language, shock value, violence, and other stuff in movies? Is it worth making the 'voice of the people' ask for clean and awesome movies?
What if it's your voice?
what if it's mine?
All the studies I did pointed to the same thing- G, PG and PG-13 movies that feature teens in leading roles are getting cleaner. At least the top-grossing ones are, so that means the most popular movies are getting cleaner.
This is important research as most tend to think it is bad to take their teens to the movies. Well, movies that feature teens are not going to have near the profanity, sexual content or drug abuse as they did in the 80's. And that includes the post Pg-13 rating addition. If any of you want specifics of this research I'm more than happy to answer your questions- email me at danieldeceuster@gmail.com and I will help if I can.
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And, don't get too complacent about things. This study really misses the point, that overall in entertainment, we are much more 'in your face' than 20 years ago. Our High School in Europe just put on a play that was chock full of drug use, vulgarity, profanity and sexual references. Most of the parents thought it was great.