Violence and its injury consequences in American movies: a public health perspective

Objectives To evaluate the seriousness and frequency of violence and the de gree of associated injury depicted in the 100 top-grossing American films o f 1994. Methods Each scene in each film was examined for the presentation o f violent actions on persons and coded by a systematic context-sensitive an alytic scheme. Specific degrees of violence and indices of injury severity were abstracted. Only actually depicted, nor implied, actions were coded, a lthough both explicit and implied consequences were examined. Results The m edian number of violent actions per film was 16 (range, 0-110). Intentional violence outnumbered unintentional violence by a factor of 10. Almost 90% of violent actions showed Ilo consequences to the recipient's body, althoug h more than 80% of the violent actions were executed with lethal or moderat e force. Fewer than 1% of violent actions were accompanied by injuries that were then medically attended. Conclusions Violent force in American films of 1994 was overwhelmingly intentional and in 4 of 5 cases was executed at levels likely to cause significant bodily injury. Not only action films but movies of all genres contained scenes in which the intensity of the action was not matched by correspondingly severe injury consequences. Many Americ an films, regardless of genre, tend to minimize the consequences of violenc e to human beings.