Cartoons depict death more than adult movies

A newly discovered study, a children's cartoon, a type of film that is often considered to be pure about royalty and furry animals, is actually 'rife with death and killing scenes' , even more than what is portrayed in adult horror movies.

'A film with a cute clown fish, a princess or a beautiful deer is the main character, doesn't mean that the movie won't have killing and crime,' Ian Colman, professor of translation studying at the University of Ottawa (Canada), the head of research, emphasized.

Mr. Colman decided to analyze the depiction of death in animation after realizing that many cartoons he watched with his children contained tragic scenes.

For example, in the animated film "The Land Before Time" about dinosaurs, the protagonist's mother was savagely attacked and killed by a tyrant dinosaur in the first 5 minutes. At that time, Colman's daughter was seriously agitated and asked him to stop the movie.

The same thing happens in the animated film "Finding Nemo" , when a ferocious barracuda devoured the mother of the clown fish - the main character in the film.

Mr. Colman and his colleagues identified 45 of the highest box office children's cartoons, then recorded how long it took for the main characters to die, their role in the film and how They lost their lives. These films, from 1937's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" to "Frozen" in 2013, are classified as widely available (G) or parents should have instructions for their children to watch (PG). .

Children may not understand the complexity of death and negative reactions to violent death scenes in cartoons.(Artwork: Shutterstock)

The team did not consider the sequel to the film, when a character might have died in the first episode. They also removed films without human or animal characters, as children may not consider the deaths of characters who are cars, robots or toys in the same way.

For comparison, the researchers contrasted each animation with two leading adult box office films in the same year, including horror movies with supernatural elements like " The Exorcism of Emily Rose "," What Lies Beneath " and horror movies like " Pulp Fiction " or " Black Swan ".

They found that the characters in the cartoon had poor lifespan. In it, two-thirds of cartoons depict death, while the same only exists in about half of adult films. In cartoons, most characters lose their lives because of animal attacks or fall from very high places, such as windows, while common causes of death in other movies is due to bullets, car accidents or illnesses.

Even so, not all deaths are random. In particular, cartoon characters tend to be 2.8 times more murdered than adult film characters. In addition, the team found that many of those deaths occurred to parents, turning the main characters into orphans.

Of course, many bad characters in the last movie also died. But according to Dr. Victor Strasburger, a professor of pediatrics at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine and not taking part in Mr. Colman's research, children and even adolescents may not understand the permanence. complexity of death.

Therefore, this expert recommends, in order to prevent children from having negative emotions or reactions during and after watching cartoons, parents can find out information about the film online or search on the CommonSenseMedia page. org, a not-for-profit organization that categorizes films based on the level of violence, language and sexually suggestive words, before showing children a movie.

Researcher Coleman added that parents can also reassure them by watching movies with them. In this way, if something is difficult to receive, children can ask and talk to their parents about it. This can really be a positive experience.

Reference: Daily Mail.co.uk.