The Correlation between Sexual Taboos in Iranian Comedy Movies and Box Office Sales

Abstract

AbstractTaboo is a part of language that is studied in sociolinguistics. It means all forbidden words, expressions, and actions. Compared to other taboos, sexual taboos have always been more prohibited and their use in Iranian cinema is against the culture of Iranian society. Considering that comedy movies have a significant effect on changing the discourse of any society, the purpose of the present study was to investigate sexual taboos and their correlation with movie sales. In this research, 51 best-selling Iranian comedy movies released between 2012 and 2018 were viewed in their entirety and sexual taboos were extracted and placed under different topics. The research results showed that sexual taboos were used under the topics of sexual organs, sexual acts, sexual profanity, sexual clothing, sexual market, and physiological conditions. Also, the results indicated a positive and significant correlation between these movies and box office sales.Keywords: Taboo, Sexual Taboo, Cinema, Comedy, Box Office IntroductionThe study of taboos is a part of sociolinguistics that has received a lot of attention in recent years. Taboos are words, sentences, and actions that are forbidden to be used in the society. They can be used in the forms of verbal and nonverbal taboos under various topics. Among the various topics of taboos, sexual taboos are not only considered taboos in all societies, but also the most forbidden ones. Also, since cinema in any society is the most efficient tool for representing the culture and values of that society and has a great effect on its culture and language, the study of taboos in cinema is considered an important part of sociolinguistics. Comedy movie is a genre that has the most influence on the society due to its popularity. It forms new actions and discourse structures. In this research, we intended to analyze sexual taboos in the best-selling Iranian comedy movies in a 17-year period, classify them into different topics, and investigate the correlation between their occurrence and box office sales regardless of other factors affecting the sales. Materials and MethodsIn this research, by referring to cinetmag.com and checking the box office sales, the best-selling comedy films released in Tehran between 2012 and 2018 were determined and 3 comedy movies with the highest sales in each year were selected. After carefully watching 51 movies, 1005 verbal and non-verbal sexual taboos were extracted. Verbal taboos are forbidden words and phrases and non-verbal taboos can be identified through camera angles, display of forbidden scenes, and actors’ movements. Also, after coding and classifying sexual taboos at the end of the work, the best-selling comedy movies of each year were observed by the second evaluator and all the sexual taboos were noted and placed in different categories so as to increase the research reliability. Finally, a reliability coefficient of 0.773 was achieved. Discussion of Results and ConclusionThe statistical analysis of the correlation between the occurrence of the taboos and movie sales showed that sexual taboos had a significant positive correlation with the sales of the movies (0.482). Also, among the different classes of sexual taboos, the amounts of film sales had the highest correlation with sexual acts, sexual organs, sexual profanity, and sexual clothing with the intensities of 0.516, 0.373, 0.292, and 0.210, respectively. Moreover, the two groups of physiological conditions and sexual market had the negative correlations of -0.001 and -0.065, respectively. The positive correlation of movie sales and sexual taboos could be attributed to the originality of these taboos and their incompatibility with the values of the Iranian society. They were incompatible with the previous expectations of the audience, while they could have the necessary attraction for the audience due to creating a sense of surprise. Among the various topics of taboos, sexual acts and sexual organs were more surprising because they referred directly to sexual topics and had a significant positive correlation with movie sales. After these two categories, sexual profanity and sexual clothing could be considered inappropriate for the Iranian culture and society and could arouse a sense of surprise although they were indirectly related to sexual topics. Therefore, their correlation with movie sales was still positive and significant. The issue of physiological conditions that was related to menstruation and childbirth had become widespread in the society and its prohibition had thus disappeared because of culturalization. Finally, sex market, which referred to vulgar movies and prostitution, was a shameful economic activity for earning money due to the chaotic conditions of the society. Therefore, according to the authors, the negative correlation of these two issues with movie sales could be attributed to the disappearance of the ban and its bitterness for the audience, respectively.

Keywords

• taboo
• sexual taboo
• cinema
• comedy
• box office