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His findings would make Quentin Tarantino sit up and pay attention:

• Major characters are 2.5 times more likely to die in children’s animated films compared to dramatic films for adults;

• Where a death occurs, it’s 2.8 times more likely to be a murder in children’s animated films; and

• The victim is five times more likely to be a parent in children’s films.

“In a nutshell, children’s films are nothing but murder and mayhem,” he said.

The children’s films in the study include Bambi, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, Finding Nemo, Frozen, the Lion King and more. “All of those have quite memorable death scenes,” he said.

The study is published in the Christmas issue of the BMJ, devoted each year to offbeat research.

It was partly his own kids’ reaction that pushed Colman and James Kirkbride of University College London to do the study, and they assigned a team of students to go home and watch movies for the sake of science.

“We initially thought, wouldn’t it be funny if there were just as many deaths in children’s films as there are in films for adults?” he said.

The results shook them. “People think it’s quite funny. But they are also a bit shocked.

“When we found out the death rates were actually much higher, we really started to think, ‘Wow, what is going on here? Is it really necessary for Hollywood to kill off all these characters?'”

One third of the children’s films had no deaths, at least on the screen. These include The Jungle Book (though the main character is an orphan), Aladdin, Shrek and Happy Feet.

The study doesn’t conclude there’s any psychological damage. But Colman says he knows a lot of people “who say, ‘Oh my goodness, I remember when Bambi’s mother was shot and I was so upset and thought about that for years.’ There is some evidence that kids are affected by what they see on screen.”

His paper concludes that parents could watch movies with their kids to cushion them from “the inevitable horrors that will unfold,” concluding: “That’s all, folks!”

tspears@ottawacitizen.com

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