Violence in Movies - Research Paper Example

One of the most viewed and produced genres include violent and action packed movies which are purely entertaining in nature. However, the first years of violent movies were tightly regulated by the Production Code and therefore between the years 1939-1959, the genre of violent movies was in its lag phase; however produces recognized the potential of violence movies in the market and post 1960 production of such movies started though the concept of bloodshed was uncommon. It was only much later in the 1980’s that blood, guns and true violence was visible onscreen i.e. the depiction of violence changed drastically and till date the trend continues in American cinema.

It needs to be admitted that though today violent activities are shown more in number, the actual visibility of blood was much raw in the older movies while today blood shedding is represented in a more sophisticated manner because the subject itself has become really common and the audience today have evolved too. It was in the 1980’s that the transition of movies into violence movies actually started since this was a drastic transitional period for the Hollywood film industry itself. One of the quintessential violent movies was the pure action movies whose basic structure and plot forms the basis of action movies that are made today.

One of the first violent movies to be censored during this period was Conan, the Barbarian (1982) which was an action packed, adventurous and thriller. The concept of man-alien conflict also started in this period with the making of the Predator in 1985 where “the entire film literally boils down to a mano-a-mano standoff between Major Dutch Schaeffer, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger and the alien predator who has hunted and killed his platoon soldiers one by one” (Kendrick,2009,p96). However, Cannibal Holocaust (1980) which is predominantly the most violent documentary movie that has