Study: Moviegoers Prefer Movies with Conservative Values
An annual study shows that in 2012 American moviegoers still preferred movies with strong conservative content or values over movies with liberal or leftist values, by nearly a five-to-one margin.
The impact was felt overseas and on home video as well.
Every year, Movieguide®, the family guide to movies and entertainment, conducts a comprehensive study of the content of the major movies released by Hollywood and the major independent film studios to see what kind of content moviegoers in the United States and overseas prefer.
Movieguide®’s annual study of the political content in movies shows that movies with strong Pro-American, patriotic, capitalist, anti-socialist, anti-communist, and anti-statist content and values make much more money per movie than movies with strong Anti-American, anti-patriotic, welfare statist, Marxist, secular, atheist, and/or very strong perverse content or values reflecting a radical, anti-human view.
In fact, movies with conservative values and content made almost five times as much money as movies with liberal, leftist, or statist values and content, averaging $90.80 million per movie in 2012 versus only $18.55 million per movie for movies with liberal or leftist content and values.
The more conservative movies in 2012 included such titles as “Marvel’s The Avengers,” “The Dark Knight Rises,” Ice Age: Continental Drift,” “Jiro Dreams of Sushi,” “2016: Obama’s America,” “Red Dawn,” “Act of Valor,” “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” “Skyfall,” “Red Tails,” “Atlas Shrugged Part II,” “Zero Dark Thirty,” “John Carter,” “Here Comes the Boom,” “Won’t Back Down,” “For Greater Glory,” “Battleship,” and “The Odd Life of Timothy Green.”
The more liberal, leftist, or statist movies included such movies like “Cloud Atlas,” “The Campaign,” “Promised Land,” “Amour,” “Django Unchained,” “Blue Like Jazz,” “Keep the Lights On,” “Butter,” “Any Day Now,” “The Perfect Family,” “A Royal Affair,” “Killer Joe,” “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” “Rock of Ages,” “Hysteria,” “Your Sister’s Sister,” and “21 Jump Street.”
Some movies registered content in both categories, including the acclaimed movies “Lincoln” and “Argo.”
“Movies with more conservative values not only do better in the United States,” said Dr. Ted Baehr, founder of Movieguide®, who presented highlights from Movieguide®’s Annual Report to the Entertainment Industry at the 21st Annual Faith & Values Awards Gala Feb. 15 at the Universal Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles. “They also do better overseas and among the biggest selling DVDs.”
For example, 60% of the Top 10 Movies Overseas in 2012 had strong conservative values, but none of them had any strong liberal, leftist, or politically correct content or values.
In addition, among the Top 10 DVD Sales for Theatrical Movies at the end of 2012, 60% had at least some solid or strong American, patriotic, or other conservative values while only 20% had any solid or strong Anti-American, leftist, or liberal values.
“The success of conservative values in 2012 was no mistake,” Dr. Baehr said. “It’s been true ever since we began doing our political analysis 11 years ago in 2003.”
Dr. Baehr noted that the “vast majority” of the world’s 7 billion people are religious, not secular, with nearly 2.3 billion people saying they’re Christian, about 1.5 billion saying they’re Muslim, 948 million saying they’re Hindu, and 469 million saying they’re Buddhist.
He pointed out that the combined conservative versus liberal/leftist categories are particularly important because they factor out any anomalies in the database. They also show that, overall, conservative movies with solid or strong traditional moral and political values now earn five or six times more money than liberal/leftist movies with solid or strong non-traditional, secular humanist, or statist values.
“People want good to overcome evil, justice to prevail over injustice, and liberty to conquer tyranny,” Dr. Baehr concluded. “They respond to strong heroes and even strong heroines, but they are turned off by radical social engineering schemes and big government programs full of faceless bureaucrats.”
Below is the breakdown of the particular conservative and non-conservative categories analyzed by Movieguide®, with the Average Box Office per movie in the U.S. and Canada.
Conservative Movies versus Leftist Movies, 2009-2012 in U.S. and Canada
Box Office Sources: The Numbers, IMDB, and BoxOfficeMojo.
** Overall Political Content for 2009 Thru 2012
| Content | 2012 Avg. B.O. |
| All Conservative/Moral Categories | $90,800,991 |
| All Liberal/Leftist Categories | $18,550,966 |
| Content | Avg. B.O. 2011 |
| All Conservative/Moral Categories | $59,022,331 |
| All Liberal/Leftist Categories | $10,665,555 |
| Content | Avg. B.O. 2010 |
| All Conservative/Moral Categories | $84,756,932 |
| All Liberal/Leftist Categories | $17,938,200 |
| Content | Avg. B.O. 2009 |
| All Conservative/Moral Categories | $83.11 million |
| All Liberal/Leftist Categories | $25.85 million |
** Political Content for 2012
| Content | Avg. B.O. 2012 |
| Strong Patriotic/Pro-American Movies | $104,035,334 |
| Anti-Communist Content | $98,187,022 |
| Very Strong Biblical Morality* | $84,237,598 |
| Strong Pro-Capitalist Content | $76,320,574 |
| Pro-Communist Content | $54,903,420 |
| Strong Anti-Capitalist Content | $29,876,360 |
| Strong Politically Correct Content | $23,883,472 |
| Strong Anti-Patriotic/Anti-American Movies | $22,599,692 |
| Very Strong Pro-Atheism | $5,666,774 |
| Very Strong Pro-Homosexual Content | $3,487,124 |
| Very Strong Feminism | $1,804,139 |
| Pro-Socialist Content | $957,275 |
| All Conservative/Moral Categories | $90,800,991 |
| All Liberal/Leftist Categories | $18,550,966 |
| Content | 2012 Avg. B.O. |
| All Conservative/Moral Categories | $90,800,991 |
| All Liberal/Leftist Categories | $18,550,966 |
Similar results occurred in 2009, 2010, and 2011, as well as in all the previous years we’ve been doing this particular study, which began in 2003:
** Political Content for 2011
| Content | Avg. B.O. 2011 |
| Anti-Communist Content | $57,436,438 |
| Strong Pro-Capitalist Content | $60,300,281 |
| Very Strong Biblical Morality* | $54,488,404 |
| Strong Patriotic/Pro-American Movies | $68,064,258 |
| Strong Anti-Capitalist Content | $8,295,805 |
| Strong Anti-Patriotic/Anti-American Movies | $28,983,322 |
| Pro-Communist Content | $23,760,625 |
| Strong Politically Correct Content | $10,247,747 |
| Pro-Socialist Content | $2,565,606 |
| Very Strong Pro-Atheism | $7,523,606 |
| Very Strong Pro-Homosexual Content | $4,671,694 |
| Very Strong Feminism | $621,172 |
| Content | Avg. B.O. 2011 |
| All Conservative/Moral Categories | $59,022,331 |
| All Liberal/Leftist Categories | $10,665,555 |
** Political Content for 2010
| Content | Avg. B.O. 2010 |
| Anti-Communist Content | $138,874,274 |
| Strong Pro-Capitalist Content | $86,165,368 |
| Very Strong Biblical Morality* | $77,981,393 |
| Strong Patriotic/Pro-American Movies | $66,169,777 |
| Strong Anti-Capitalist Content | $13,764,104 |
| Strong Anti-Patriotic/Anti-American Movies | $7,950,815 |
| Pro-Communist Content | $36,662,189 |
| Strong Politically Correct Content | $22,655,583 |
| Any Pro-Socialist Content | $30,479,077 |
| Very Strong Pro-Atheism | $6,608,902 |
| Very Strong Pro-Homosexual Content | $15,092,680 |
| Very Strong Feminism | $19,594,537 |
| Content | Avg. B.O. 2010 |
| All Conservative/Moral Categories | $84,756,932 |
| All Liberal/Leftist Categories | $17,938,200 |
** Political Content for 2009
| Content | Count | Avg. B.O. 2009 |
| Strong Pro-Capitalist Content | 7 | $126,542,204 |
| Strong Patriotic/Pro-American Movies | 12 | $103,648,047 |
| Anti-Communist Content | 8 | $79,437,276 |
| Very Strong Biblical Morality* | 31 | $66,303,542 |
| Strong Anti-Capitalist Content | 6 | $79,918,204 |
| Strong Anti-Patriotic/Anti-American Movies | 7 | $40,635,856 |
| Pro-Communist Content | 9 | $42,372,140 |
| Strong Politically Correct Content | 23 | $29,172,376 |
| Pro-Socialist Content | 9 | $14,305,988 |
| Very Strong Pro-Atheism | 21 | $10,131,184 |
| Very Strong Pro-Homosexual Content | 12 | $7,611,461 |
| Very Strong Feminism | 0 | $0 |
| All Conservative/Moral Categories | 58 | $83,111,724 |
| All Liberal/Leftist Categories | 87 | $25,851,950 |
| Content | Avg. B.O. 2009 |
| All Conservative/Moral Categories | $83.11 million |
| All Liberal/Leftist Categories | $25.85 million |
* Movieguide® believes that the basic moral principles in both the New Testament and the Hebrew Scriptures are the same, though individual Bible-believing, monotheistic Jews and Christians, or individual churches, synagogues, and denominations, may differ greatly (often depending on external non-biblical influences) on the issue of what moral values the Bible teaches, not only in the past, but also in the present time and in the future. The term Biblical Morality (or Traditional Biblical Values) refers to MOVIEGUIDE®’s traditional, grammatical, literary, and historical understanding of what the Bible teaches, morally speaking. The anti-communist content includes movies that attacked totalitarian systems of big government resembling the socialist ideology of Marxism.
For more details concerning Movieguide®’s political study for 2012 and its political studies for 2002-2009, please contact Dr. Ted Baehr or Dr. Tom Snyder at (805) 383-2000, ext. 303.
For highlights of Movieguide®’s 2013 Annual Report to the Entertainment Industry, including results of its comprehensive study of what Hollywood movies earned in 2012, please contact us at the above phone number.
You may also email Tom at tom@movieguide.org.
Copies of the full 2013 Annual Report may be purchased from Movieguide®. Please contact Robert Baehr at (805) 383-2000 for more information.
Dr. Baehr is chairman of the Christian Film & Television Commission® (CFTVC) ministry and its family guide to movies, Movieguide® (www.movieguide.org). CFTVC and Movieguide® are an international non-profit ministry dedicated to “redeeming the values of the entertainment industry by influencing industry executives and by informing and equipping the public about the influence of the entertainment media.”
Both CFTVC and Movieguide® are entering their 28th year of service. Their parent organization, Good News Communications, Inc., has been operating since 1978.
For more information, visit www.movieguide.org or call 1-888-248-6689.
For an interview with Dr. Ted Baehr, please contact Tahlia at 1-888-248-6689 or tahlia.m@movieguide.org.
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