Indiana University Study: Violence Not as Appealing to Kids as Producers Believe

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LilMissDanceAlot

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From an Indiana University press release, a research study has concluded that increasing the level of violence in cartoons does not add to the appeal of a show to kids, and may in fact have the opposite effect Included in the press release are links to two Youtube videos that show two versions of the cartoon Picture Perfect Thief, one with violence, and one without violence, so you will able to make your own observations and conclusions.

While Picture Perfect Thief is a cartoon, the press release does mention the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, a live-action series, so I'm mirroring this thread to The Entertainment board as well. What are your thoughts about this study's conclusions?
 
I believe it. My senior thesis was on violence in video games, so I'm interested in this kind of research. Violence in any medium is a hot button among researchers, since there is so little recent information (five years tends to be the cutoff for what is considered useful).
 
I'm seriously not seeing the resemblance here.

To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure the findings can be trusted given the quality of the short itself. The "violence" only has one incredibly awkward slot machine gag and they simply reuse the footage of Orangehead punching Eggle in the face.

See, here they're trying to combine the concept of violence used in slapstick cartoons with that of Power Rangers. We have the villain performing slapstick routines on the hero, while the hero just...punches them. That's not how it works: in a slapstick cartoon, the hero will typically use their wits to cause the villain to do themselves in (assuming it uses a hero and villain dynamic).

I also disagree with the claim about the characters having been designed to be androgynous. Typically, cartoon characters without obvious female traits tend to be male by default. The round bodies and and defined wrinkles on Orangehead's face in particular imply they're supposed to be male.
 
Interesting study from my neighbors to the north. Still, it reminds me of the Beavis And Butthead episode where Beavis goes around on a sugar high as Cornholio.
 
Yes this is how i feel...
I mean the problem is that they seem to adding violence, but not only is the violence tame, but its not funny. Slapstick violence in cartoons is not violent for the sake of being violent but because its funny and regular violence is used in cartoons when the cartoon is meant to thrill or excite viewers... if the violence does not accomplish either one of those things then it is really rather pointless... these shorts do neither of these things. The violence pretty much adds nothing, which in the end means that there is pretty much no where to go but down.

I'm not sure if there is a way to conduct such a study... even if they included GOOD violence (either exciting or funny) then it will be compared to what the non-violent version did... the point of corruption is that the non-violent and violent jokes may not be equally funny.
 
Eh, I too feel like that short complicates the whole studying process because it's quality is equivalent to a beginner animator's short you'd find on Newgrounds.

If they really wanted a proper study, they should have shown something like Tomy & Jerry vs. an old Disney short, possibly the best choice would be one of the Fantasia shorts with no dialogue to rival with the Tom & Jerry short.

it would be more on equal grounds, the quality of the short wouldn't be up for debate, there would be a huge difference in writing (Large amounts of slapstick vs. storytelling, timed-to-the-tune animation), and would probably produce better results.
 
Too many confounding variables. When you do a study, you have to have everything the same except for the thing you're studying. You can't have one group watch a silent cartoon and the other watch one with dialogue. Stuff like that won't get published.
 
I think a better way would be to create a much higher-quality short in the form of a hero cartoon, with the following difference:

In one, the hero uses his wits and outsmarts the villains non-violently. In the other, the hero fights the villains directly.

Another way is to present a comedy cartoon with one version focused more on dialogue-based humor, and the other version with more slapstick.
 
Where to start?

First off, was this short intended to be humorous, or just for testing? Nothing was terribly funny in either version, but the report never specified their reactions. So apparently, the kids like the less violent cartoon more, but how much? One possibility is that the reactions were so similar one could read the results both ways.

Also, this isn't slapstick. It's violence. One could argue the difference is violence vs. slapstick, but there was nothing slapstick in the non-violent version, and the violence isn't well handled. They just had the characters punch each other a few times. How is that much of a difference? Even though this cartoon was a pretty bad decision for testing, something that would make the results more believable would be to change Eggle's plans to represent the differences.

I admit I also thought of the characters as boys. To me, when a character's face is undefined, it looks more masculine.

Slapstick is not the way to study children's reactions to violence. Gunheart's idea was better:



Fantastic idea. This is a true difference between violence and slapstick. Testers could see whether children are more thrilled by the direct violence in the violent cartoon or if they prefer the hero's cleverness in outsmarting the villain. I would belive those results.

Sorry for the long post.
 
Like, for example the slap scene from the spaghetti western movie "Trinity is still my name" starring Terrence Hill and Bud Spencer?
(It's live-action but lots of these movies featuring these 2 actors got lots of slapstick violence)

(Edit: there a clip of that scene on Youtube, but I don't think I could post it here)
 
That could be the next expieriment. Science takes many trials. One study does not make a rule. You need several, done by several groups, to validate an argument. The study here is interesting. It shows that there is reason to doubt the prevailing stereotype. It's now time to look further into it.
 
Not to mention something story driven that happens to have violence will be more engaging than something that's simply violent to be violent.

Another aspect of the study could be a short cartoon that is mostly fight scene, and another that has a story behind it. And keep the production levels the same so you don't run into issues of good animation vs bad animation, and make sure the fights are equally violent and well choreographed.

I'd be interested to see if there's a gender split on that one.
 
I think they approached this issue from the wrong angle. When parents explicitly forbid their kids from seeing violent stuff, THEN its appealing.

And not that this has anything to do with the subject but the mere mention of Indiana University always turns my stomach ever since they ran Bob Knight out of town.
 
Violence doesn't add to the enjoyment of children's cartoons.
Comedy doesn't add to the enjoyment of children's cartoons either.
Nothing does.
Not if it's that lame.

If the non violent version tested better it could have been because lameness of the hitting.
Or maybe the kids were morons. Really, the orange won because the egg fell in a bucket of paint for no reason. I expect kids with anything on the ball to prefer some thing with cause and effect over mere things happening for no reason. Then again maybe the kids are smart enough to never tell a grownup anything with violence is better since they have such a problem with it and always have a way of punishing you for it.
And then at the end he into the machine where he seemed to be injured. How the heck is that not violent?

Yeah, great choice: one boring as hell cartoon or exactly the same boring as hell cartoon with an the good guy getting sissy slapped.
 
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