Violence in G-rated animated films

Context Children's exposure to violence in the media is a possible source o f public health concern; however, violence in children's animated films has not been quantified. Objective To quantify and characterize violence in G-rated animated feature films, Design Violence content was reviewed for all 74 G-rated animated feature fi lms released in theaters between 1937 and 1999, recorded in English, and av ailable for review an videocassette in the United States before September 1 999. Main Outcome Measures Duration of violent scenes, type of characters partic ipating in violent acts (good, neutral, or bad), number of injuries/fatalit ies, and types of weapons used for each film. Results All 74 films reviewed contained at least 1 act of violence (mean du ration, 9.5 minutes per film; range, 6 seconds-24 minutes). Analysis of tim e trends showed a statistically significant increase in the duration of vio lence in the films with time (P = .001), The study found a total of 125 inj uries (including 62 fatal injuries) in 46 (62%) of the films. Characters po rtrayed as "bad" were much more likely to die of an injury than other chara cters (odds ratio, 23.2; 95% confidence interval, 8.5-63.4). A majority of the violence (55%) was associated with good or neutral characters dueling w ith bad characters (ie, using violence as a means of reaching resolution of conflict), and characters used a wide range of weapons in violent acts. Conclusions Our content analysis suggests that a significant amount of viol ence exists in animated G-rated feature films. Physicians and parents shoul d not overlook videocassettes as a source of exposure to violence for child ren.