Study: There's a Lot of Fucking Death in Children's Cartoon Movies

Kids movies have a bad rep for, well, death. Watch pretty much any Disney movie: does the main character have two parents? One of ’em’s about to make an unfortunate and tragic exit. A new study has compared children’s animated movies to more adult films and when it comes to murder and violence, kids films can really hold their own.

Over at University of Ottawa, mental health epidemiologist Ian Colman decided to take the 45 top-grossing children’s animated movies of all time and compare them to the top-grossing dramas aimed at adults, seeing exactly how many murders and acts of violence occurred in each and how long it took for the first death to occur. Via Newsweek:

They found that in children’s films versus those aimed toward adults, deaths amongst major characters were 2.5 times more common, and 2.8 times more likely to be murders, says Colman. Movie characters that were parents fared particularly badly—they were five times more likely to die in children’s films.

While ‘adult’ film deaths are largely caused by gunshots, motor vehicle crashes, and illnesses, deaths in kids’ films basically consist of animal attacks and falls. If you’re Mufasa from Lion King, technically it’s both. 🙁 Also, in children’s films, secondary characters like parents, nemeses, and children were more likely to be the first on-screen death, but in adult movies, it’s more common for the main character to be the first on-screen death.

So how can kids deal with all of the death in these films? The researchers suggested that parents consider watching movies that contain death with their children, “in the event that the children need emotional support after witnessing the inevitable horrors that will unfold.” Man, I definitely wish that my parents watched Balto with me because image of those tiny coffins still make me uneasy. Honestly, the thought of the first ten minutes of Up gets me teary-eyed, and I’m supposed to be an adult or something.