Escalating violence in PG-13 movies.

Abstract

In this issue of Pediatrics , Romer and colleagues1 examine the judgments of parents watching a series of movie clips with sexual and violent content. These clips, viewable at the Annenberg Public Policy Center’s Web site, are a bit unsettling (they include sexual encounters that leave little to the imagination, executions that come by surprise, and battles between humans and robots that end in the graphic “death” of the robot). In this study, as they watched more of the clips in succession, parents became more permissive about the age at which they would allow their own children, as well as children generally, to view the movies from which these clips originated. From this, the authors conclude that frequent moviegoers may become desensitized to the sex and violence they repeatedly see onscreen. This desensitization process, they contend, is 1 reason content in movies rated PG-13, or appropriate for teenagers with parental guidance, has … Address correspondence to Jeanne Van Cleave, MD, 15th Floor C100, 100 Cambridge St, Boston, MA 02144. E-mail: jvancleave{at}partners.org