Study Finds That Movie Sex & Violence Desensitizes Frequent Moviegoers

If you love movies, and who doesn't, you are more than likely highly desensitized to sex and violence thanks to the movies' love of sex and violence. This is according to a new study by the Annenberg Public Policy Center in Pennsylvania, whose findings were then further analyzed by Deadline Hollywood (link below).

After surveying 1,000 parents exposed to multiple clips of on-screen sex and violence in movies, a study found that parents become increasingly desensitized to acts of sex and violence with repeated viewing which appears to lead to an increasing acceptance to both. The result is that these parents are less likely to shield their kids from movies that contain sex and violence.

Another interesting facet to this study is that they also found the same desensitization to hold true for the MPAA ratings board members as well. 

The MPAA has long acknowledged that its standards have shifted over time but has traditionally attributed this to the changing standards of parents. Those changing standards of parents may actually be a result of the increased violence and sexual content in PG-13 movies, the study suggests. If repeated viewing of violence and sex makes parents less sensitive to it, then why wouldn’t that make the MPAA’s ratings board — who preview and rate hundreds of films a year — less sensitive, the study suggests. The MPAA had no comment early Monday morning. However, behind the scenes, one MPAA exec was putting out that the study was flawed because it only showed clips and not the full movie.

Come join me in Tucker's Corner for a moment to get my uncensored and fully desensitized thoughts on this...

Here's the thing. As a parent to an eight-year old girl and a five-year old girl, and as someone who also works as a film critic for another publication, I see a lot of movies. A lot. They have zero effect on my decision making process as a parent for what films I should and shouldn't show my children. I may personally be desensitized to sex and violence, but I am 100% aware of what is and is not appropriate for my children. The one mistake I made as a parent was showing my older daughter Gremlins when she was 6, unaware that the same film had frightened me as a five-year old when it was released in theaters. It's a mistake I have not repeated in the interim, nor do I plan to. I want my daughters to see The Godfather, Amadeus, Taxi Driver, and Monty Python's Life of Brian, and a hundred other films that I consider to be essential viewing, but I am also willing to wait until they are ready to discover those films at an appropriate age.

When I used to work in retail, I worked with a woman who took her young children to see Saw and Hostel and every other imaginably awful film under the sun, simply because she wanted to see the films and didn't feel like paying for a babysitter. I told her that she was a terrible human being and an even worse parent, statements which I fully stand behind to this day. Being a parent means being vigilant. I'm not saying that children shouldn't be exposed to anything, just that there is a time and place for certain things, and childhood is not the time or place for torture porn. Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of my work here knows that I hate hypocritical "won't someone think of the children" bullshit more than anyone. What this study shows me is that far too many people in this world are like that woman I used to work with, and it's one of the most scathing indictments of modern parenting I've seen in some time. Thanks for listening. 

Via Deadline Hollywood