Ohio State News: A Rising Trend of ‘Murderous Verbs’ in Movies over 50 Years (ft. Babak Fotouhi)
INFO's Babak Fotouhi finds violent dialogue in movies has risen steadily across all genres over the past 50 years
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In Ohio State News’ article “A rising trend of ‘murderous verbs’ in movies over 50 years,” University of Maryland adjunct assistant research professor Babak Fotouhi illustrates how violent language in film dialogue has increased over the past five decades. As machine learning enables large-scale analyses, researchers examined subtitles from over 160,000 English-language films produced from 1970 to 2020 to track the use of words like “kill” and “murder.” Fotouhi and his co-authors found that violent dialogue is rising across all genres, not just crime movies, and that both male and female characters show increases over time.
Fotouhi emphasizes that while their study provides a conservative estimate—counting only active constructions of murderous verbs—it underscores a broader trend: movies are becoming more violent as filmmakers compete for audience attention. Importantly, he notes that understanding these trends highlights the need for media literacy and mindful consumption, particularly to protect vulnerable populations like children.
For more on this study analyzing half a century of film dialogue, read the full article here.
The original article was written by Jeff Grabmeier (614-292-8457; Grabmeier.1@osu.edu.) and published by Ohio State News on December 30, 2024.