Hollywood ‘teen-smoking’ stance
p2pnet.net news:- “Descriptions on sex, violence and language that accompany movie ratings now will include such phrases as ‘glamorized smoking‘ or ‘pervasive smoking’,” says MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) boss Dan Glickman.
And, “When we look back 10 years from now, this will be a defining moment,” says Lisa Paulsen, president and ceo of the Entertainment Industry Foundation.
They’re trying to pretend the movie industry is taking to heart the idea it’s about time it stopped featuring smoking in movies because it might persuade youngsters to start and becoming addicted.
Wouldn’t it be nice if, for once, they just told the truth? Wouldn’t it be great if we saw something along the lines:
Once upon a time smoking was okay. Only in recent years have we realised tobacco is a major problem for everyone —- for the people who make it and the people who use it.
Hollywood recognizes and acknowledge that smoking can kill you and will no longer feature it in any of its productions.
Time Warner, Viacom, Fox, Sony, NBC Universal and Disney have announced they’re taking this bold step for the good of everyone.
But they have in mind, in particular, the children of the world.
Instead, Hollywood does what it does best, absolutely nothing. Movie studio hacks come up with empty and meaningless PR-babble to be mouthed by the likes of Glickman and Paulsen, ie, “Our objective is to share the public health information and to encourage filmmakers to do what they do best, which is to be creative, to connect with their audience and to carry on – each in their own way – this industry’s proud tradition of social responsibility,” waffles Glickman, “crediting” the Entertainment Industry Foundation and Directors Guild for their “early leadership”.
But, “The announcement made by the MPAA to include the presence and depiction of tobacco use in movies as a ‘factor’ in its rating system does not adequately address public health concerns,” says the American Lung Association, going on:
Smoking in movies is a significant problem that needs to be addressed. The American Lung Association believes that tobacco use should be eliminated from new movies – especially those intended for children, teens and general audiences.
The Lung Association has historically and actively engaged with the entertainment industry to affect positive change to address this issue and will continue to do so.
‘72 percent of all U.S. produced live action films that grossed at least $500,000 from 2004 – 2006 depicted smoking’
“This announcement is wholly inadequate and will cost countless lives,” says American Legacy Foundation president and ceo Cheryl Healton “Since more than 80 percent of smokers start before turning 18, youth exposure to smoking in youth rated movies is a vital concern for our nation’s health.”
The foundation continues:
Parent, youth and public health groups, including Legacy, the American Medical Association and AMA Alliance and American Academy of Pediatrics have been urging the MPAA to rate any new movie with smoking R to reduce youth exposure to film smoking.
Research published earlier this week in the journal Pediatrics found that U.S. films deliver billions of smoking impressions to 10-14 year olds in the U.S. – the ages at which youth are likely to begin experimenting with cigarettes. The study – the first to directly examine youth’s exposure to movie smoking – supports previous findings that youth-rated movies deliver proportionally more smoking to adolescents because they are less likely to see R-rated movies.
Several key factual statements in MPAA’s letter to state attorneys general are at odds with independent research on this subject: According to April 2007 data from the University of California-San Francisco Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, 72 percent of all U.S. produced live action films that grossed at least $500,000 from 2004 – 2006 depicted smoking. Also, between 2004 and 2006, only 42 percent of movies that depicted smoking were already R rated, not the 75 percent claimed by the MPAA.
The MPAA quotes the 2006 Monitoring the Future Study and states that “the percent of smoking during a monthly period was down about 60%, 50% and 40% in grades eight, ten and twelve respectively.” What it doesn’t say is that the comparisons were to youth smoking rates in the mid-1990s when they reached a peak. MPAA’s letter also fails to mention that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has stated four times in the last five years that high levels of smoking in movies are responsible for the fact that youth smoking remains as high as it is and that there was no decline in daily youth smoking rates between 2005 and 2006.
The MPAA makes a general claim that “parents are very clear to us that they – not the industry and certainly not the government – should determine what is appropriate viewing for their kids.”
To the contrary, a February survey from Mississippi State University and the American Medical Association Alliance indicates that 81 percent of adults in the United States agree adolescents are more likely to smoke if they watch actors smoke in movies, and 70 percent support a new R-rating for any movies with on-screen tobacco imagery, unless the film clearly demonstrates the dangers of smoking. The Social Climate Survey of Tobacco Control is an annual scientific poll of public attitudes about tobacco control policies.
“… we’re going to be careful in the rating of films not to glorify smoking in front of our kids,” says the MPAA. “This is a next step that gives everyone in the industry the opportunity to play a more active role. The MPAA is proud to stand with the Entertainment Industry Foundation, the directors and other creative guilds and the AMPTP in promoting these efforts.”
Don’t trouble to stay tuned.
Also See:
glamorized smoking – Hollywood, smoking, movies, teens, May 11, 2007
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Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local politicians. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance. Don’t just complain. Do something!
May 16th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
I disagree. Movies are the only place where smoking is sexy. In real life it’s stinky and gross and indicative of a drug addict. Media never influenced me to smoke. I don’t really have a problem with it. I’ll parent my own kids, thanks.
May 16th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
I could not bring myself the finsh TFA. but, at what point did it becoume every one leses problem? Somkeing is bad for you. we all know that and have known that since the 1950!! just like over eating, being promiscuous, and drinking. these are your choiceses. you know the consiquesis going in the results are on your own head.
/I am guilty of some of the vices
// is my problem no one elses
May 16th, 2007 at 6:07 pm
English much?
May 16th, 2007 at 7:28 pm
Maybe not.
Not everyone uses english as their first language on the
WORLDWIDE web.
So what ?
I understood his/her point perfectly well, so the misspellings
did not in anyway detract from the post.
Spelling/grammer-nazi tactics are simply another form of
ad-hominem .. ie .. if you can’t properly refute the point,
attack the poster.
May 17th, 2007 at 7:19 am
Hollywood, in some form or another, depicts almost every illegal act imaginable on screen. Sometimes the perpetrators get what’s coming to them, sometimes they don’t.
Every act, that is, EXCEPT file sharing.
In fact, the ONLY movie that I can recall that was produced by an MPAA studio that included file sharing in the plot was The Italian Job, and even then it was only referencing the former Napster, and thus referring to music piracy and not movie piracy. At no point in any movie has Hollywood, infamous for glamorizing mass murders and heavy drug use, done the same for movie piracy. Never.
If anything, this indicates that the MPAA is well aware of how impressionable some people can be, and they don’t want to take any risks, lest they reinforce the perceived coolness of file sharing. While I generally subscribe to the idea that it is the usually the uneducated and easily impressionable person who believes that stuff portrayed on the movie screen is usually the same as it is in reality (even if it is on a few rare occasions), I find this Hollywood move particularly interesting.
March 1st, 2008 at 9:34 am
Interesting. At stake in this discussion is what we (society) accept as our norm. In the 1950’s it was acceptable and legal to discriminate against minorites. Now, however, because of civil rights proptests the societal norm has moved away from outright discrimination.
Similarly, there were other behaviors in movies and television that were not seen; i.e sex and violence. I doubt anybody would disagree that both are far more prevalent in 2008 than in 1948.
What happens to us (society) is that we gradually accept as normal those things that are continually before us. So that eventually, what was unacceptable becomes accepatable.
Smoking has become unaccepatable in the public mind. With continued pressure, Hollywood will eventually reflect the changing public perception of smoking, and there will be less of it.