More Technology = More Violence

As I have continued to research violence in movies for Junior Theme, I have discovered that movies have drastically increased their usage of special effects over time. New special effects technology has allowed filmmakers to further experiment with violence. This new technology has caused an increase in the graphic portrayal of violence in film.

Back before 1968, the Production Code Association prohibited any graphic violence from appearing across the big screen. Yet, once the Production Code was eliminated in 1968 and replaced by the MPAA ratings that are still in effect today, filmmakers chose to experiment with more technology as a means of portraying violence. They started out using squibs, which more realistically depicted bloodshed. Squibs became widely used throughout films for years.

World War Z special effects

However, after the introduction of computer-generated imagery (CGI) to film, movies have become even more graphically violent. It is very rare for someone these days to watch a movie without viewing some type of gore, battle, or other violent scene. Filmmakers have heightened the amount of depicted violence in their films using CGI, including movies such as Lord of the Rings, Independence Day, Harry Potter, and World War Z. As technology improves each year, it worries me that the violence in films is going to be unavoidable. When filmmakers move beyond CGI into some new technology, the increase in violence is almost unimaginable.