Blood and guts on screen prevent blood and guts in the street
I heard this on NPR.org this weekend and got a big kick out of it. According to this study by Prof. Gordon Dahl of UCSD, violent movies drive down crime. How, you ask?
The theory goes something like this: Young men tend to commit most of the violent crime, often because they're out, getting drunk and getting into arguments with other dudes. But when they're parked in the movie theater, watching other young men pretend to shoot each other, they're less likely to scrap afterward. Prof. Dahl and his co-author, Stefano DellaVigna, say this accounts for 52,000 fewer assaults each year.
The New York Times picked this up, as well. Peter S. Goodman writes it up like this:
Young men are the most likely to commit violent crimes. In opting to see a movie — even one featuring, say, gang rape or chain-saw amputation — they forgo activities that have a greater tendency to encourage mayhem, like drinking and drug use.
“Economics is about choice,” Professor Dahl said. “What would these people have done if they had not chosen to go and see a movie? Whatever they would have done would have had a greater tendency to involve alcohol. If you can incapacitate a large group of potentially violent people, that’s a good thing.”"
Interesting stuff. You usually see people railing against The Sopranos and American Me, saying they incite violence. If Dahl and DellaVigna are correct, maybe A Better Tomorrow could really give us a better tomorrow.
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