Teens want movies and shows to stay in the friend zone.
At a time when films like “Babygirl,” “Poor Things” and “Fair Play” and shows like “Disclaimer” and “Tell Me Lies” are more sexually explicit, younger audiences are hoping to see more Hollywood stars stay clothed on screen and that the entertainment industry focuses on characters who are in platonic relationships. That’s a key finding from a new study conducted by the Center for Scholars & Storytellers at the University of California, Los Angeles. The report, titled ‘Teens & Screens’, surveyed approximately 1,500 respondents aged 10 to 24.
Researchers found that 63.5% of adolescents said they preferred big- and small-screen stories to focus on friendships, while 62.4% said sexual content is unnecessary as a plot device. That’s big jumps from last year, when 51.5% of respondents said they wanted more content about people in platonic relationships, and 47.5% said they wouldn’t seek out shows or movies where sex is a major focus. plot point. The survey did not ask respondents between the ages of 10 and 13 about their attitudes toward sexually explicit content.
“Our findings really seemed to reinforce a trend we found in our data last year: that young people are tired of seeing the same dated and unrelated romantic tropes on screen,” said Alisha J. Hines, research director at the center. “Teens and young adults want to see stories that more authentically reflect a full spectrum of nuanced relationships.”
Instead, 36.2% of adolescents said they liked content set in fantasy worlds more than stories about the rich and famous (7.2%), real-life problems (13.9%), personal problems ( 24.2%) or other genres (3.3%). And when it came to their favorite forms of entertainment, 39.2% of teens chose playing video games, compared to 33.3% who watched TV or movies and 27.5% who opted for scrolling social media platforms.
When it comes to digital forms of entertainment, 38.8% of adolescents say YouTube is the “most authentic” social media platform, followed by TikTok (36.3%) and Instagram (28.3%) – known as Twitter, was the least. authentic, with 18.1% of respondents in favor of it.
Erotic films were once a popular genre, with films like ‘Indecent Proposal’ and ‘Basic Instinct’ topping the charts. But after those films declined and television shows like “Game of Thrones” and “The Affair” became more permissive, Hollywood invested less money in explicit content. That seems to be changing in recent months, with a flood of more sexually provocative content hitting the screens. But it seems those movies and shows will have to attract an older audience, at least if the study’s findings are to be believed.