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BYU study: Teen movies contain fewer dirty words than in the past

Fire this professor | 5:08 a.m. May 28, 2009

I am thinking about a group of BYU students, sitting in a dark room watching endless DVD's and counting profanities. Did they write all the words down one column, check them off as they heard them in the movie, and then count them afterwards? How many movies were they forced to watch? What professor would DO this to his students???!!! 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.

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.

Anonymous | 6:50 a.m. May 28, 2009

This is important, cutting edge research. Give me a break, is this how BYU professors spend their time? What a waste of precious church dollars.

OTOH | 6:57 a.m. May 28, 2009

On the other hand, I have noticed that in the same time period, there has been an increase of profanity and toilet humor in movies targeted at children, esp. in Disney productions - go figure.

Comments continue below

Big deal... | 7:31 a.m. May 28, 2009

Less profanity in movies for our teens... This may be true...but that doesn't keep them from going home and hearing it from their parents. Profanity is now such a common place occurance at home that it has become regular conversation between individuals. Ever wonder why certain profaine words pop up in a teen's vocabulary like it was natural verbage? It's no big deal! Or is it?

John Charity Spring | 8:18 a.m. May 28, 2009

The previous comments are very profound. This study ignores the fact that modern Hollywood now markets adult movies to teens, so the fact that there is less profanity in so-called teen movies (which are really aimed at pre-teens) is irrelevant. Further, even if it is true it does not make up for the fact that modern Hollywood fills its movies that are aimed at teens with increasing amounts of violence, sexuality, and nudity. This is hardly cause for the celebration the study claims that it is.

Parents | 8:57 a.m. May 28, 2009

There is a website called "kids in mind" that breaks down the content of box buster movies.

Anne | 9:06 a.m. May 28, 2009

Ooh wow, less profanity. More sex scenes and crude jokes. Out of the two, I'd say profanity is easier on the soul. I swear a lot. It's not like I should and it's far from what is considered appropriate (although I hold my tongue around children and neighbors).

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.

Anonymous | 9:08 a.m. May 28, 2009

Having been in the edited movie industry for many years now and involved in the Director's lawsuit, I am encouraged to read this. Every little bit of good news, is a forward step in our demands to to keep our children safe from Hollywood's indecent value system.

Reg PFJ | 9:21 a.m. May 28, 2009

re: Fire this professor | 5:08 a.m. May 28, 2009

//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.

Frank Castle | 9:32 a.m. May 28, 2009

re: John Charity Spring | 8:18 a.m. May 28, 2009

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.

Brian Griffin | 9:37 a.m. May 28, 2009

re: Anne | 9:06 a.m. May 28, 2009

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.

Re: Fire this professor | 9:42 a.m. May 28, 2009

Don't be ridiculous. There were not "endless DVDs." The article states a specific number (I believe 90, but I'm not going back to check). Also, this wasn't a homework assignment; the students involved would have been paid research assistants.

"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.

To comment at 9:42 a.m. | 10:18 a.m. May 28, 2009

Amen.

Neal | 11:16 a.m. May 28, 2009

Do a study on the number of sexual references in CHILDREN films - not to mention young adult films...then your results might be a little bit more interesting.

Leo | 11:53 a.m. May 28, 2009

I could be wrong on this but I believe the seven dirty words were deemed unspeakable on the air by the late George Carlin rather than the FCC.

Re: Fire this professor | 12:02 p.m. May 28, 2009

I am assuming that your comments were not serious, as I am sure that most students already saw most of those 90 movies like Harry Potter, Back to the Future etc.

Anonymous | 12:06 p.m. May 28, 2009

John Charity Spring, You may want to read the study before you spout off.

Ms. Jen | 12:34 p.m. May 28, 2009

Maybe less profanity but more sex, violence and dark imagery!

Hawk | 12:48 p.m. May 28, 2009

Ignoring the critics of this study for a moment, our experience bears out the results of this study. We have rented numerous favorites from our youth (e.g., Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, Ferris Bueller, etc.) only to realize that the profanity content is far greater than we remembered. However, while quantity seems to be less, shock value may be greater now (e.g., F-bombs allowed in PG-13 movies).

comment at 9:42 | 1:53 p.m. May 28, 2009

Wow that was great thanks. I'm a student in the psychology department and I totally agree with your comments. I find the average BYU student to be way to dependent on their parents.

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....

Sam | 2:15 p.m. May 28, 2009

Interesting study, but I do see one major flaw. Not including R-rated movies simply because teens are not "allowed" to see them without a parent or guardian distorts the truth. The truth is, teen movies with PG-13 and lower ratings may have less bad language, but R-rated teen movies have more. Teens are seeing R-rated movies more and more, with or without the consent of their parents. They are still absorbing the same amount of bad language, if not more, just from a different rating class.

Kyle | 2:52 p.m. May 28, 2009

Maybe the results of the study are true. But, I would argue that teens see more destructive things than a foul word in movie. For example, I would be interested in a study about the amount of sexual content found in the movies teens watch now compared to what their parents watched.

Anonymous | 5:17 p.m. May 28, 2009

No, No, this can't be right. My generation had the patent on virtue, and all subsequent generations have been going to heck in a handbasket. Everbody knows this! This study MUST be flawed!

therush | 8:18 p.m. May 28, 2009

This is really a non-issue. How is saying a swear word in a movie different from saying "frick" or "dang"? Those words are used for the same reason as "worse" swear words.

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.

Susan | 8:56 p.m. May 28, 2009

I totally agree. We recently watched Back to the Future with our kids and we shocked at the amount of swearing in the movie. So were our kids and they were the ones who kept looking at us like "what the ...." mom. I was like, "I know!" lol. Try watching Ice Castles, there's an eye opener. I found myself apologizing throughout the movie to my kids for all the swearing.

Avid | 12:10 a.m. May 29, 2009

re: the patent on virtue

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.

Ben | 11:15 a.m. May 29, 2009

I don't understand how these "researchers" failed to recognize a very obvious LURKING VARIABLE here... According to the article, the study looked at the 30 top-grossing "teen" movies from each decade. Anyone familiar with these movies will immediately recognize the fact that the top "teen" movies of the 1980s were very much more narrowly-targeted at a primarily teen audience than the "teen" movies of the 2000s. In the more recent decades, it's no secret that producers have exploited this genre so as to appeal to more than simply a teenage core audience. The very fact that the newer "teen" movies appeal to a broader audience (including younger children - and hence contain less profanity) is the very reason why they are in the list of top-grossing films. If these researchers actually looked into the details of the demographics that attended "Karate Kid" versus those who attended "Spider Man," they'd see that this entire study is flawed.

r-rated movies.... | 11:50 a.m. May 29, 2009

honestly, why couldn't the authors of this study include r-rated movies to get more accurate results? because BYU wouldnt let them watch r-rated movies for the study? who says they couldnt just use a simple computerized algorithm to analyze scripts from someplace like imsdb (dot com)?

sutton | 7:40 p.m. May 29, 2009

Fire this professor... I don't know if you know this, but BYU isn't an Elementary school. Youre going to have to let your children grow up and make decisions for themselves...

Anonymous | 9:09 p.m. May 29, 2009

Satan brings contention...

Anonymous | 9:47 p.m. May 29, 2009

"Satan brings contention..."

Well said.

Anonymous | 10:26 p.m. May 29, 2009

I think that a study examining the use of profanity in movies is a good thing, however, I don't think this was well done. I attend a high school where my brother and I are the only church members, and when my friends want to go see a movie, it sure isn't Harry Potter. I don't think that this study is accurate without examining r-rated movies, and also the majority of movies not r-rated that are viewed by teens are considered adult films anyway. Though it may be accurate, it is not useful at all to say that the amount of swearing in teen geared films has gone down if the films studied are not the ones that teens primarily view.

Let's take a step back... | 7:18 a.m. June 1, 2009

Talk about missing the point, people. The purpose of the study wasn't to go out and prove how great the current film industry is. They did a content analysis and anyone that read the the actual study or knows anything about research would know that a study like this is designed to find out "what" is out there. We can make assumptions all day long about how "good" or "evil" today's films are, but until you figure out what is really there you can't figure out why or how profanity may or may not impact those viewing it. This is just one step of many involved in a series of media effects studies.

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.

who's business is it? | 8:58 p.m. June 12, 2009

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?

Dan | 10:50 a.m. July 1, 2009

I am actually the student mainly responsible for this and other sutdies by Dr. Callister. I worked with Master's students to collect and analyze the data. All movies were G, PG and PG-13...and no one was "forced" to watch them. Professors were willing to code movies the students would not see. Not as if they were very bad anyway, they were not rated R.

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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