The most dangerous job in cinema history, according to science
Cinema can slant public opinion regarding certain professions.
Audiences have taken cinema a little bit too seriously since the dawn of its existence; there was a time when viewers feared that the train on the big screen was going to crash into them. Even though the world’s relationship with movies has obviously changed significantly since the silent era, it is surprising to see the extent to which commonly held beliefs develop based on recurring tropes in cinema.
It’s often the case that the reputation of certain professions changes as a result of the light in which a specific film depicts them. There was a genuine uptick in the popularity of archaeology after the success of Raiders of the Lost Ark, as every kid of that generation wanted to be Indiana Jones. Of course, most films have a somewhat fanciful depiction of how their profession is handled. In real life, journalism isn’t nearly as exciting as it seems to be, based on His Girl Friday and Sweet Smell of Success.
The fact that characters with specific jobs tend to appear in certain genres of films can also impact their mortality rate, as professions that pop up in horror, thriller, or action films are likely to be in danger. According to a research study of 10,112 different jobs in 43,983 movies with 328,538 characters that suffered 69,832 onscreen deaths, those referred to as a ‘commando’ are the most likely to die.
It’s three times more likely for someone who has the profession of a commando to die compared to an average character, as approximately 64% of them are killed. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that many of the other most dangerous professions are also related to the military or another action-packed field, which include terrorists at 59%, gunmen at 58%, revolutionaries at 57%, and sorcerers at 57%. Conversely, there is a small chance that a character will die if they are a wedding planner, matchmaker, sports writer, illustrator, or manicurist, given that they are often at the centre of romantic comedies.
Although the term commando might be frequently associated with the sort of brash, spectacle-driven action films that dominated the ‘80s, its high death rate might have something to do with its emergence in World War II. Both during and immediately after the war, there was a high number of action-adventure films about special operatives for the Allied forces who went on secret missions, such as The Dirty Dozen or Force 10 From Navarrone. It was fairly unlikely for all of these characters to make it out alive, which reflected the heavy death toll of the actual war.
Commandos would soon be placed at the centre of military-themed science fiction thrillers that developed a high-concept look at what specific forces looked like, with Predator in particular being the perfect blend of military action and sci-fi horror.
There has also been a resurgence in the popularity of war films about special forces in the post-9/11 era; Tears of the Sun and Lone Survivor are just two of the films about commandos that were loosely based on true stories where there was a mass casualty event.
Ironically, the most famous film about a commando is none other than Commando, an Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle where he plays the former special forces agent John Matrix. Not only does Matrix survive the film, but he ends up retiring, promising to never return to the dangerous line of work, and despite the film’s success, it never had a sequel that would contradict that conclusion.
