You've probably noticed through the years that Disney likes to kill off parents, especially mothers, in its animated movies meant for children. And while this is definitely an odd characteristic of classic kids' movies, from Bambi to The Little Mermaid to The Lion King, everybody knows this is just how it goes.
But these movies can't be any worse in the death department than a crime thriller or a major Hollywood blockbuster meant for an adult audience, right? It's hard to find a movie these days without some form of violence, and seeing a character or two die on screen usually comes with the territory.
Well it turns out that when it comes to characters dying in movies, children might have it a lot worse. A new study in the Christmas 2014 edition of The British Medical Journal analyzed how the deaths of major characters in 45 of the top-grossing children's animated films compared to the two top-grossing dramas of each year from 1937 to 2013.
The researchers found that two-thirds of children's animated films featured the death of a main character compared to half of the comparison adult films. Wait, what? You mean to tell me there's actually more death in children's movies than their adult counterparts? That seems like the opposite of how things should work.
However, the types of deaths between the two genres differed, as well as how explicitly they were shown, obviously. Common causes of death in children's films included animal attacks and falls versus gunshots, motor vehicle crashes and illnesses in adult movies. Still, the major characters in children's animated films were also more likely to be murdered, and that's a pretty dark thought. And of course, parental death was also higher in children's movies.
It's important to note here that the study just looked at the first on-screen death of a character, so this means that characters die off more quickly in children's films, but the total number of deaths in a movie could be higher in movies geared toward adults.
So what effect does all of this death have on children? "Exposure to on-screen death and murder could have deleterious and long lasting effects on children, especially young children," according to the study. This includes triggering post-traumatic stress and developing fears of the causes of death that they see on screen.
However, the authors of the study also note that seeing death on screen could actually be good for children. It could help children better understand death and open up dialogue about death between them and their parents.
But remember, kids. At the end of the day, they're just movies.
[H/T The Atlantic]
