Anemone's Research Emporium

Animated versus Live Films

Animated films generally do better at the box office than live films.

Animated films are less likely to have lots of sex in them than live films, although they still tend to be pretty violent.

Set the MPAA classifications on a scale from 1-5, as follows:

and set the categories for sex and violence on a scale from 1-6, as follows:

The average ratings and amounts of sex and violence for animated and live films, 2001-2005 are as follows (with standard deviations in parentheses):

Correlations with box office gross differ significantly between animated and live films:

***significant at p<0.001 (T-values in parentheses)

Sex and violence correlate with box office for live films but not for animated films. This may be due to the smaller range for violence and the overall lower amount of sex in animated films as compared to live films.

For sex, there is a blip under "mild" caused by the success of Shrek, Shrek 2 and The Incredibles. Sex in animated films is less salient than sex/nudity in live films (think of the difference between a live butt crack and a cartoon one; or the difference between an animated Jessica Rabbit and a live one - you can get away with more in animated before you start putting people off), but there is still less than in live films. The small range for violence may be the cause of the non-significant correlation with box office gross.

Anemone Cerridwen
updated November 28, 2007