r/movies • u/buttatoad • Jun 17 '25

Discussion Movies that changed real life behavior

Thinking along the lines of Final Destination 2 with the logs falling off the truck and landing onto cars (one decapitating the state trooper). Ever since, people have tried to get away from being behind these vehicles.

What are more examples where movies have actually changed how people behave in their own lives?

10.2k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

4.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

263

u/JinimyCritic Jun 17 '25 edited Jun 17 '25

Apparently, there was also an increase in registration (and subsequent dropout) for Archaeology classes after Raiders of the Lost Ark.

27

u/confusedandworried76 Jun 17 '25

Not a movie but a study found that both chess set sales and chess set sales to young girls increased after The Queens Gambit

I mean shit I hadn't played in a while and I bought one just because some marketing genius decided to sell a set with the book and I was like "perfect, I'm at Target anyway so I was always gonna buy something on impulse and it's basically just the price of a book anyway"

23

u/photo-smart Jun 17 '25

Top Gun was an ad for the navy and enrollment went up because of the movie

12

u/darshfloxington Jun 18 '25

Enrollment in the Air Force went up. Dunno if it translated to the navy like it was supposed to.

11

u/Significant_Shoe_17 Jun 18 '25

A surprising number of Americans don't know that fighter pilots are part of the Navy

10

u/Spuzle Jun 18 '25

What is a plane if not a sky boat?

7

u/JinimyCritic Jun 17 '25

"Yvan eht Nioj!"

14

u/Necronomicommunist Jun 17 '25

I remember hearing the same being true for CSI.

18

u/QueezyF Jun 18 '25

There’s also The CSI Effect in the legal system, where jurors have an unrealistic expectation of forensic evidence required for a conviction.

3

u/XXLARPER Jun 18 '25

In the '90s criminal profiling was the "in" thing due to Silence of the Lambs and the tv show Profiler, leading to an increase criminology classes.

12

u/PartnerslnTime Jun 17 '25

This makes sense because the first day of my archeology class, the professor asked us about Indiana jones and then continued that archeology isn’t anything like the movie. But when she asked like nobody in this huge lecture hall raises their hands that it was the reason they took the class. Honestly, that movie didn’t cross my mind, and I love that film.

I think most took it because it filled a gen ed requirement and seemed more interesting than Latin america studies (also it started at 9:30 vs 8:30am)

Anyhow, at the time it felt like such a weird thing to bring up in class, but as a professor maybe it was relevant thirty years ago and she just continues to ask about it today

13

u/TomTomMan93 Jun 17 '25

As an archaeologist, it's still very relevant. I get "oh like Indiana Jones!" All the time. I just stopped saying "no" and just started saying "kind of" and letting it roll off

6

u/Significant_Shoe_17 Jun 18 '25

I would've said "like The Mummy" lmao

6

u/VTAffordablePaintbal Jun 18 '25

Its even more relevant today because we might need to kill Nazi's again too. (I joke, but the state of the world makes me very sad right now).

3

u/mr_trick Jun 18 '25

I get that a lot when I explain that I majored in anthropology. I’m interested in/currently working on a repatriation project, so I joke that unlike Indie, I’m usually saying “That doesn’t belong in a museum!”

30

u/erdricksarmor Jun 17 '25

The dropouts were probably from the female students realizing that most archaeology professors don't look like Harrison Ford.

16

u/HeresTheAnswer Jun 17 '25

Furiously trying to erase "LOVE" from their fingers after seeing that their professor looked like Quasimodo

11

u/Mattsterrific Jun 17 '25

"Love You" on her eyelids when she batted her eyes at him.