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Nothing beats sitting down with the family and relaxing with a good movie or TV show after a long, hard week. But when something inappropriate pops up out of nowhere, you might find yourself with family memories you didn't intend to make. Unfortunately, you don't have to look very far to find potentially offensive content on your screens these days.
If it feels like things have been taken up a notch since you were a kid, it's not your imagination. Recently, VidAngel compared data of movies and TV shows it has filtered from 1980 to 2022 to see just how much has changed over four decades. And while you probably won't be surprised to learn that things have gotten worse, you might be shocked by some of the statistics.
Here's what things looked like in 2022
VidAngel looked at the overall stats for profanity, sexual content and violence in TV and movies for 2022 and here's what they found:
- 37 counts of profanity, blasphemy and foul language per hour.
- 15 counts of sexual content, nudity or immodesty per hour.
- 13 counts of violence, blood or gore per hour.
- 75 total counts of potentially offensive content per hour.
Here's another eye-opener: The rating with the most counts of violence, blood and gore was TV-Y7 with 39 per hour. Even though most of these might be non-graphic or cartoonish violence, parents and guardians shouldn't ignore the potential impact on younger audiences.
And here's another one that might surprise you: There was very little difference in the counts of sex, nudity and immodesty for PG-13 and R-rated films, with 11 and 11.5 counts per hour, respectively.
Now compare that to previous years
To put those numbers into perspective, movies and TV shows in 2022 had nine times more profanity, blasphemy and foul language than those in 1980. They also had five times more sexual content, nudity or immodesty, and five times more violence, blood or gore. Since 2000, offensive language, sexual content, and violence has increased by 173%.
Of course, there's something 2022 had that 1980 and even 2000 didn't: streaming services. This rise in offensive content really started rising sharply in the last decade since the launch of original streaming content.
For example, take the first Netflix original series "House of Cards," which launched in 2013. It was rated TV-MA and had 199 counts of profanity, 51 counts of blasphemy, 25 counts of sexual content and 26 counts of nudity in the first season.
When Netflix launched "Stranger Things: Season 4" in 2022, it had 345 counts of profanity with over 100 instances of the f-word or s-word, 11 counts of sexual content, including at least one portrayal of teenage sex, and 230 counts of graphic violence. And that was from a show rated TV-14. Several of 2022's most popular shows received the more mature TV-MA rating, including Bridgerton, Yellowstone, Jack Ryan, Severance, Reacher, and The Terminal List.
Imagine what the numbers will be in the next decade or two.
How this could be impacting society
This trend toward more offensive content could be taking a bigger toll than people realize. The American Psychological Association reports that viewing violence on television can have a "desensitizing effect" on children and lead to aggressive behavior.
Shockingly, the American Academy of Pediatrics found that the average young person will have viewed an estimated 200,000 acts of violence on television alone by the time they turn 18. According to the report, this may be linked to increased bullying, physical violence, verbal aggression, anxiety, depression and trauma.
Whether it's explicit language, sexual content or violence, the normalization of this kind of content hasn't just desensitized children — it's affected audiences as a whole.
New technology can provide relief
Ultimately, directors and producers get to choose what kind of content they create — and families and individuals should get to choose what kind of content they want to watch at home. For those who want to increase their options without sacrificing their standards, there's VidAngel.
VidAngel connects with several streaming services and offers over 100 filters to skip or mute whatever content in movies and shows you deem inappropriate. Want to eliminate profanity, blasphemy, sexual innuendo, slurs and crude language? The audio filters can take care of that. Want to skip scenes and images that might contain sex, nudity, immodesty, graphic violence, or drug usage? Select these options on the video filters.
No more having to worry about "that one scene" that makes you uncomfortable or the surprise f-bombs that drop without warning. Filtering isn't one size fits all, so VidAngel lets you tailor your entertainment to fit your family's personal needs and preferences.
Since the trend toward more offensive content isn't likely to change in the future, why not take back control without constantly having to reach for the remote? Give VidAngel a try and see — or don't see — what you've been missing.
