Coalition Says Movies Try To Sell You Tasty, Cool Cigarettes
Hollywood blogger Nikki Finke reports the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, the California Youth Advocacy Network and the American Medical Association Alliance have teamed to launch an ad campaign to warn against Hollywood's tendency to shill for the tobacco industry.
It's long been noted that movies tend to go over-the-top by including cigarette smoking scenes, which many industry observers believe are evidence of a wink-and-nod agreement between big studios and tobacco companies, despite the fact that all suspected parties deny there's a connection. Philip Morris USA even has a policy that forbids studios from using their logos and products in films.
The anti-smoking in movies coalition is attempting to call studios out, Finke writes:
Mobile billboards will drive around Los Angeles, and stop by the major studios, today and tomorrow showing a young girl asking, "Which movie studios will cause me to smoke this summer?" Using Facebook and Twitter, a scorecard will regularly tally the number of tobacco impressions in this summer's youth-rated blockbusters. A letter-writing and petition drive across the country will commence during the blockbuster season. And, at the end of September, billboard will be strategically placed near the studio with the worst summer record for encouraging smoking in its summer films.
"The blockbuster season's first example of smoking in a youth-rated film is 20th Century Fox's X-Men Origins: Wolverine. It has numerous scenes of the main star, actor Hugh Jackman, with a cigar. Another PG-13 blockbuster, Angels & Demons by Sony Pictures, includes tobacco imagery," the campaign said (Wednesday).
At least Angels & Demons does promote a positive social message — having Tom Hanks do away with that mullet he had in The Da Vinci Code.
Which Movie Studio Will Cause The Most Youth To Smoke This Summer? Yours? [Deadline Hollywood Daily]
(Photo:nixter)
Post a comment
Comments:
Well Wolverine needs to smoke, it is part of his character from the comics. Plus he can never get cancer anyway with his healing powers.
"Which movie studios will cause me to smoke this summer?"None.
It's a PG-13 movie, not a G rated Disney film. By the time I was old enough to watch those films my parents had convinced me that smoking was the nastiest thing ever.
Does anyone remember the campaign a while back to try to make smoking scenes a reason to automatically make a movie rated R? Freaking ridiculous. There's a difference between showing characters that smoke and endorsing smoking.
Seriously, why do people seem this stupid? If Hollywood were depicting real life (even the dank-stanky parts of it) there are plenty of people who smoke. If there were NOBODY smoking in movies, then they would be unrealistic. It's insane.
Plus, cigars ARE cool.
@Joewithay: Even if they knew that they probably wouldn't care. They'd say that the studio should have 'fixed' that part.
@GenerousHelpingOf_GitEmSteveDave:
I like the porn comparsion. Now we just need a mobile billboard with a young girl asking, "Which movie studios will cause me to experiment sexually this summer?"
Seriously though, smoking in movies has gotten way toned down from what it used to be. While if anything the sex and alcohol has gotten ramped way up to compensate. Take your average movie about college for example.
So. Let me make sure I understand the current rules about what is ok for a movie (or video game).
Sex or nudity - Bad
Smoking - Bad
Any hint of racial bias - Bad
Violence, explosions, killings - OK.
Violence towards animals - Bad.
Gotcha
hell, the Simpson's promote smoking in their show all the freaking time!!!
ahh... i'm in flavor country
smooth Laramie cigarettes
not banned yet and been on the air for damn near 20 odd years!!
@Tmoney02: It's considered when they rate movies now but it doesn't necessarily make it an R rated movie: [www.msnbc.msn.com]
I'd also like to point out that there are at least two web sites that review movies for parents to help them determine whether or not a movie is appropriate for their children and both point out whether or not there are smoking scenes in them:
[www.kids-in-mind.com]
[www.parentpreviews.com]
Granted these kinds of sites tend to be religious but they will describe offending content. So it's not like you can't look this information up.
For the love of God, get these people away from the movie industry. Why do so many people think it's their job to sanitize entertainment for everyone else?
I'm looking forward to when they manage to get smoking banned from all movies, then they can focus on keeping characters from eating trans fats in movies.
Seriously, these freaking groups keep winning their battles, but then they have nothing to do, so they keep pushing the line farther and farther.
Ridiculous. As long as bad parents expect the MPAA and government entities to do the dirty work, there will always be someone/thing to blame.
It doesn't take a village. It takes mom and/or dad to say, "NO!"
I'm much more concerned about violence in movies than smoking.
Movies, TV don't make me want to smoke ANYTHING. Even from a young age. Same as they don't want me to kill anyone, get into a dance off, take the blue pill, or get caught in a giant tween comedy romp plot with robots. You know what does? My friends.
I'll just stick with non addictive and non killing pot ;)
Whenever I hear about this, all I can think about is the end of the movie Escape from LA.
+ Watch video
(@7:50)
Anti-Smoking groups are just mad because smoking is cool and they are not.
@B1663R: lol, I can imagine an PSA of Hugh Jackman at the end of moving saying something like that:
"Remember Kids, as Wolverine I can heal and you can't. Don't smoke."
/Shooting_Star "The More You Know"
I fear for the free-time our nation's adults are wasting by creating these anti-smoking groups.
Also, where was the furor over "Good Night & Good Luck"? Hopefully they don't assume that that film will be gaining cult status with the 18 and under crowd anytime soon.
I'm really big on anti-smoking campaigns, but this is a load of stupid crap.
There's smoking in movies because of narrative, genre, and artistic conventions that we as a society first started putting into our films a hundred years ago. Cigarettes are signifiers, not always conscious on part of the filmmakers, and the way they go through a scene helps tell the viewer something about that scene. They're a visual shortcut.
If characters on Saturday morning cartoons start lighting up regularly, THEN we have a problem.
Having recently watched The Exorcist, it was very shocking to see doctors smoking in a hospital (and all of the smoking in general). Compared to older movies like this, current movies have almost no smoking in them at all.
"Which movie studios will cause me to smoke this summer?" WTF is this crap? Seriously, when did movies trump personal responsibilty and decision making. When I started (yeah yeah, its bad for me, got it) it was because my friend pulled me aside into the woods and shoved a menthol in my hand and said try this, not because i saw some movie star smoking. I don't emulate actors, i'm a sucker for peer pressure.
@B1663R: "Bart, you're going to smoke *every* one of these cigarettes" I think that was the episode where the mob was storing cigarettes in Bart's room.
Anyone notice how much smoking was going on in the movie Valkyrie? I just saw it the other day and it was pretty blatant with over the top scenes of German officers smoking.
Check it out...you'll see what I mean.
@Atticka: I'm going to think that it wasn't over the top, but rather pretty typical for the time and place.
@HasPonies!Envy_GitEmSteveDave:
There's no good reason to ban it, and every reason not to. To simply deny something exists will seem ridiculous. Something that is suppressed will pop up in some unexpected way, usually in an unpleasant way. I say leave it alone.
That said, the billboard campaign doesn't seem incompatible with smoking in movies. Merely raising awareness of how things influence us is a GOOD thing. Leave the smoking and ask people: you may think it looks cool because you've seen it in a movie- is that a good reason to start?
@Joewithay: So what explains Lois Lane chain-smoking Marlboro Lights in Superman I & II, when she never touched a cigarette in 40 years of previous comics?
Oh, Philip Morris paid for the promotion? OK, no problem.
@Murph1908: Yes, you're confused, but it's not the ratings' fault, it's yours. The ratings system is meant to guide moviegoers who may be concerned about certain issues, especially in regards to child-rearing. Ratings are meant to help guide parents in choosing a movie their kids might see. Not many parents want their 13-year-olds to be suddenly exposed to an intense nude sex scene in, say, Wolverine. This would of course, increase adult patronage, but would cost Wolverine its PG rating. Levels of violence are also taken into account.
This is not to say sex is per se bad, or explosions good.
The ratings are simply a guide, and were put into place because of public concerns.
It's a little tedious to have to explain all this, but more info is readily available online, should knowing what you're talking about concern you.
Well, you cant spell coalition without COAL.
Product placement in moview isn't anything new, and Stylvester Stallone is one of the worst offenders, having taken cigarette money for decades.
Every time I see "Repo Man", I can't help but smile at all the generic products seen throughout the flick: "drink", "beer", and other no-name stuff.
As it happens, tonight there's an episode of the X-Files on in syndication, "Brand X", where Mulder and Scully go up against Morley Cigarette Company.
Talk about second hand smoke being lethal....
@geneb5:
The problem, as I understand it, though is that the ratings system has gone from being a 'guide' to the de facto law for movies. There is little transparency regarding what makes one move 'more adult' than another and if you push the limit too far, you get slapped with an NC-17 rating, which means that theaters will not screen your movie.
Its fine if there is a guide in place for content, I think everyone agrees that that is helpful, but when it is shrouded in mystery, producers and directors can't accurately target their movies because they don't know when they've hit the boundary of unacceptable content.
I have always liked "Screen It", which I used to use to monitor what movies I'd let our kids see, and continue to use simply for the reviews and some idea of how icky or terrifying the content will be (for myself! LOL).
@geneb5: We're not talking about Superman I and II. We're talking about a character who has ALWAYS smoked cigars. It would be disingenuous if he didn't in the new movie.
@ElizabethD: @ElizabethD:
Those kinds of sites have always made me wonder something. Yes, the writers for those sites watch "bad" movies so they can warn parents, but I wonder if after awhile they find themselves ejoying it. ;-)
@Etoiles: Here's the thing, though: it does create an impression of, at the very least, normality for smoking.
I understand that they aren't always doing it to promote smoking. But they're not really trying to promote NOT SMOKING, either. I think they could do that without sacrificing the artistic integrity (ha ha) of their films anymore than they do when they use product placement or place pro-government, pro-war propaganda into film.
It'd be nice to believe that movies are a piece of art created in a vacuum, but I just don't believe that. I think they do have an effect on society and I think it's important for them to be socially responsible when they can be for little sacrifice.
Look, it's been proven that the only thing second-hand smoke causes is second-hand coolness.
So you're welcome.
@bilups: Nope, not necessarily. I don't think that smoking should be banned, either. I just think that it's disingenuous to compare sex with smoking.
@Etoiles:
I know that one of the reasons why smoking was pretty common in old movies was that it was an easy way to solve the directorial issue of "what do we have the actors do with their hands?"
OK, people smoke. It's a part of the public. Apparently a huge part judging by all the laws passed.
You know what? The porn industry is large as well, and it's not good for minors. So how about we ban sex and skin in movies? I mean, they only put them in movies to sell porn, right?
/rant
P.S. Phil? You do realize that Wolverine's cigar was never lit in the movie, right? At least in the version I down...I mean saw.