Actually, when you think about it, this really makes perfect sense. There's not a parent I've ever met that hasn't been concerned about their kids' use of profanity. Profanity, especially in writing, is a crutch. For all the many arguments people make about a Deadwood or a gangster movie where the use of profanity adds to the realism, I think 90% percent of the time it's gratuitous.LAS VEGAS–A new study by The Nielsen Co. has found that the PG-rated movies with the least profanity made the most money at the U.S. box office.
Sexuality or violence in those films had less to do with success than the language, the Nielsen PreView group said in a study being released Thursday.
"The reality is that profanity, within PG, is the big demarcation between box office winner and box office loser," research and marketing director Dan O'Toole said at ShoWest, a conference where studios unveil upcoming movie lineups.
"Parents are choosing PG films for their kids that have very, very low levels of profanity. We're talking one-third the level of the average PG film," he said.
The research firm cross-referenced box office data on 400 films in wide-release from the fall of 2005 to the fall of 2007 with their ratings for sex, violence and profanity given by Critics Inc.'s Kids-In-Mind.com website.
Controlling for marketing and production budgets of films, as well as depictions of violence and sex, movies that scored an average 0.8 on a 10-point profanity scale collected an average of $69 million. Those that averaged 2.8 for profanity averaged $38 million.
All PG movies averaged 2.3 on the profanity scale.
And I cringe whenever the punchline to a joke is just a big curse-out. Even when I laugh, I think, "man, this is such a #$@ing clam."
Cursing does make you feel better. Some people don't get that. And for whatever reason, cursing is endemic in film and TV. You know who also curses a lot? Dancers. Oh My Stars, they talk the blue streak.
Oh well.
I should also hang my head here a bit and say publicly, in light of this article:
Dad. Hi.Um.... You were right.
Now I hope somebody comes up with a study proving that profanity makes R movies more profitable, or I'm right and truly #@$%ed.
5 comments:
Maybe the problem with those flicks is that they're watered down "badass" films, and moviegoers can smell it. If you make a PG version of "Pulp Fiction", well, who the %#@& wants to pay for that?
When I am in the mood for a Kevin Smith film, I go see Kevin Smith, not Penny Marshall.
The problem with that stat, too, is that it supposes that people know ahead of time how much swearing there is in the film, and are purposely avoiding it. That's a stretch. When's the last time you saw a trailer with an F-bomb in it? The PG rating accompanied by "coarse language" is hardly a true indication of the amount of swearing that appears in the film. So the correlation is weak at best.
No, I think the problem is that PG films with swearing are, in effect, wussy AA/R films and worth avoiding. If your film needs to have swearing in it, then do it balls out. Don't try to appeal to the widest audience possible - know your niche and $%&#ing stick to it.
Denis, sorry but I hope my parents don`t come across your post; they`re already way too right as it is.
I'm not buying it. Just how do the parents ascertain the level of profanity in a PG movie before they go to it?
I think it's more likely that the money making PG films are the ones aimed for much younger children. The older kids generally are interested in seeing PG-13 and R rated films rather than PG movies. (I spent 5 years cashiering in movie theaters, and that was my experience, for what it's worth.)
The older kids also tend to choose their own movies to see, rather than have their parents choose the movies for them.
So more mature PG films lose out on both sides: not appropriate to the parents of the younger kids, and not cool enough for the older kids.
I think it's just not kids that want to watch television with less swearing. I for one can handle a bit of swearing (I swear myself a hell of a lot sometimes) but there's such a thing as tasteful swearing (although my own mother would say there's no such thing). For an example, look at the difference between American and Canadian comedians. I find too often that American comedians rely too much on profanity and gratuitous sexual references to get their laughs, while Canadian comedians rely more on the context of the joke and its actual originality, and when they do swear, since they swear less, the swear word gives a better effect. I'm not saying this is true of all American and Canadian comedians (because it's definitely not) but I've made these generalizations based on comedians I've seen in comedy clubs I've been in and on TV.
Regarding movies, I think many less-than-stellar movies use profanity as a kind of crutch, something to add to the script in an attempt to make it better, while other movies only place minimal profanity in to give the few profane words maximum effect. For instance, when the hero in a movie drops the F-bomb for the first time two-thirds of the way into the movie because that hero encounters something very F-bomb worthy, that F-bomb has much better resonance whereas in a movie where the hero F-bombs constantly, after a while, the word means nothing at all.
I'm with LadyCanuck - I can swear a mean streak but there's a valid reason for it (usually). Characters dropping gratuitous F bombs repeatedly (whatever the medium) distract me from the plot and numb my mind after a while. Bill Cosby managed to be funny as hell (cuss word needed here for emphasis)but I don't ever recall him using anything stronger than dam or hell. Him I enjoyed. Most of today's American comedians can't tell a joke without filling sentences with f&himmers. It's simply not funny. Same goes for characters in most films. If you've got a good script, skip the crap and show your characters strengths or weakness through verbiage that won't melt someones eardrums or turn their stomaches. I fully acknowledge some characters call for #()*%&*#, but not every other word. If you can't write it to reflect the true nature of the character then go away and do something else. That's my 2 cents which currently is worth a negative 1 cent based on exchange rates. Shit.
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