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By Martha Brockenbrough
MSN Cinemama
Learn more about kids' entertainment on MSN's Mom & Pop Culture
This might come as a blow to people who subscribe to the hell-in-a-hand-basket theory of American pop culture, but teens today are exposed to far less cursing in their movies than teens in previous generations.
Gosh! Shut the front door!
Surprising, yes. But it's true. A trio of researchers in Brigham Young University's communications department studied the top G-, PG and PG-13 rated movies from the 1980s to the present day and reported their findings in The Journal of Children and Media. There's been a big drop in swearing from the 1980s teen movies to today.
It's especially surprising because dirty words on TV and in music are on the rise.
"When you consider that profanity is increasing on television, especially during the 9-10 p.m. hour," co-author Mark Callister said, "you often expect to find similar trends in other media."
But not for the big screen, apparently.
The authors found that in the 1980s, movies in this ratings cluster averaged 35 blue words per movie. That dropped to 25 per movie in the 1990s. In the new millennium, we're averaging 16 naughty words a film. In all, the 30 1980s movies they studied had 1,068 dirty words, compared with 758 in the 1990s and 485 in the 2000s (though theoretically, a few really foul-mouthed movies could bring the average up again — the 2000s aren't quite over yet).
Perhaps unsurprisingly, male characters uttered almost three-quarters of the naughty words (and teen males most of all).
Some funny examples: "Weird Science," from the 1980s, had 80 instances of profanity in it. "A Cinderella Story," from 2004, had a mere two, and they were mild. (It stars Hilary Duff, whose last name does not count as a profanity, in case you were wondering.)
The study's authors said they didn't know why swearing is on the decline. A separate study that came out in 2008, though, said movies with less swearing in them made more money; that would seem like the No. 1 compelling reason for producers to cut back on the cursing.
In any case, if you're worried about the language your kids are hearing, send
them to the movie theater. Who knew it was so darned wholesome in there?
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Martha Brockenbrough is author of
"Things That Make Us
[Sic]," a guide to funny bad grammar, published by St. Martin's
press. She also blogs about family life for Cozi.com and writes an
educational humor column for Encarta.
