Violence is increasingly present in movies, according to a US study.
And the trend is seen even in films where crime is not the main theme.
Do today's movies contain more violence?
So suggests a study entitled "Trends of Violence in Movies During the Past Half Century", published in the scientific journal 'JAMA Pediatrics', which investigated the presence of violence in movie productions over the past 50 years by analysing movie subtitles.
The researchers examined dialogue from more than 160,000 English-language films produced between 1970 and 2020, focusing on the use of verbs such as "kill" or "murder" in the screenplays.
The results are clear: violence in movie dialogue has increased significantly over the decades.
"Our findings suggest that references to killing and murder in movie dialogue not only occur far more frequently than in real life, but are also increasing over time...
"This is more evidence that violence is a bigger part of the movies we watch than ever before," explains the study's lead author, Babak Fotouhi, quoted in a news release.
Far from being confined to action films and thrillers, "murderous verbs" are also present in all film genres, the study points out.
"Characters in non-crime movies are also talking more about killing and murdering today than they did 50 years ago," says study co-author Brad Bushman.
"Not as much as characters in crime movies, and the increase hasn't been as steep.
"But it is still happening. We found increases in violence [across] all genres."
While these "murderous" terms are mostly used by male characters, female characters are increasingly beginning to adopt this language.
Here too, the trend is on the rise, and it could be winning over viewers.
On social networks, "female rage" content is captivating Internet users for its representation of female anger in movies and TV shows.
On TikTok, the #femalerage hashtag has accumulated more than 100,000 posts, and there are also thousands on Instagram.
These messages are often praised for their authenticity.