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The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, the California Youth Advocacy Network, and the American Medical Association Alliance (the AMA's volunteer arm made up of doctors and spouses) is partnering for an "Anti-Smoking In Movies" campaign launching today. 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 today.
Howver, Angels & Demons is an adult-aimed film. And a Fox insider defends the studio by noting that Wolverine, whose stogie-smoking was a defining trait in the comic books, never actually lights up the cigar in the two scenes it's in. And he says "Clean living," when it gets shot out of his mouth. "So that we know he doesn't endorse it. We are acknowledged by that very group to be the best studio in terms of avoiding smoking."
"The latest research shows that PG-13 films account 2 out of every 3 tobacco impressions delivered to audiences of all ages. Other studies have shown that 1/3 to 1/2 of all new smoking by teens can be attributed to smoking in movies – and that exposure to tobacco imagery predicts established smoking behavior in adolescents. In August 2008, the National Cancer Institute released a monograph that concluded that movies with smoking cause children to smoke."
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The fact that the photo was taken in Century City (along with the mention of Fox in the story) seems to point to Rupert-land as the lead suspect…
This will accomplish abosolutely nothing besides slowing traffic down and pissing people off.
Just another waste of money.
It is funny in Angels & Demons when the movie goes out of its way to show us that a significant percentage of the Cardinals smoke (their whithered hands are shown in loving closeup as they surrender lighters and packs of smokes to ushers before going into Conclave). I found it to be a sharp human detail within a fairly robotic, stiff movie.
I don’t think it encouraged anyone to smoke — the Cardinals are hardly portrayed as “cool.”
Wolverine is a different story — the character (in every medium except some of the animated series) has always used tobacco and boozed, but remember, his healing powers make him resistant to the smoke’s harmful effects, and prevent him from getting drunk.
Movie studio’s don’t encourage smoking. In the case of Wolverine it’s part of the character. He’s rough, angry and smokes a cigar. If people start smoking cigars just because Wolverine did in a movie then they deserve to get all the negative effects of it.
Common sense anyone?
These assholes ban everything. I can’t stand it. It’s like censorship on being cool. They ban the drinking. They ban the smoking. They ban the sex. They ban the drugs. When someone gets upset in a movie, they go shopping at the mall. As if that’s a vice. They would ban gun violence if the NRA wasn’t so strong. Why not just declare movies a fun-free zone?
What about my rights? What about my desires to see more smoking in movies? Don’t they know that banning it is just denying that it actually exists? Don’t they know that 20%+ of Americans smoke? Are we supposed to just stop making movies about them?
Is there an award for most creative defacement of the billboard?
“Which movie studio will cause me to smoke this year?” Not a single, blessed one. Unless said movie studio also causes you to vote democrat, favor gay marriage, hate religion, despise conservatives, drive economy cars, believe in global warming . . . umm. . . well. . . maybe one will cause you to smoke!
…seriously? Three organizations with apparently deep pockets put their resources together… and came up with this?
I love it. These doctors and health professionals, in the name of people’s respiratory health, decided to have hundreds of pickup trucks constantly driving around these billboards. Not the best choice for air quality.
Stop whining. Donate the money to cancer research. Come on.
I grew up in the ’60s watching old Warner Bros. gangster movies where everybody smoked cigarettes. Come to think of it, everyone on TV smoked then, too. I never did. Am I the exception? I doubt it.
It’s kind of funny that the same people who object to cigarettes in movie don’t seem to mind people smoking dope in Judd Apatow comedies. What are they hiding?
Hey, some of my family have died from the effects of smoking but SERIOUSLY? In this economy our tax dollars are going for this sh*t?
It is a joke that the majors (and through them, the MPAA) continue to allow smoking in PG and PG-13 films — nobody notices when there is no smoking, but kids DO notice when there is smoking. The MPAA will block “fuck” from a PG-13 picture, which hurts nobody, but won’t block smoking, which leads kids to start smoking (this has now been proven) and eventually kills them –
and it’s not like it would cost the distribs anything to forbid smoking except in R films — there’s no economic harm the the majors (that’s now illegal) — I can’t understand why they don’t take this step unless they are totally corrupt.
Yeah, movies are going to make her smoke. Not her parents smoking (the single biggest factor in a kid taking up smoking), not her peers — the movies. More victimhood bullshit absolving people from personal responsibility.
Nothing is anyone’s own fault anymore — lay the blame anywhere but at one’s own poor judgement.
the problem with limiting smoking to R movies is that not all PG PG13 movies are geared to those under 18. Also, what if someone wants to make say… a poignant high school drama without any R-rated material? Well guess what, kids in high school smoke so it would unrealistic to make a realistic movie about high school without smoking. Those types movies would be relegated to the R rating.
Also, if Hollywood caves, doesn’t that open the door to critics who say violent films cause violence?
Also, people smoke in real life. Some movies try to depict life realistically. Get over it.
You guys don’t get it — you may not believe it, you may want to deny it, but the FACTS are that kids — not adults, but kids, like 15-year-olds — ARE hugely influenced by movies to start smoking. Nobody starts smoking when they’re adults — they start when they’re kids and by the time they’re adults, they’re addicts. It’s now proven, scientific fact — look at the statistical studies done in the last 5 years — it’s not politics or political correctness — it’s public health. So what’s the beef? Artistic freedom? Smoking (or not) on screen pales in comparison to the language compromises that every writer, producer and director makes in order to get a PG rating — but everybody lives with that and it has no public health consequence. Get real.
Such a shame that we let these small groups spew their crap and pretend that people don’t smoke in the real world, which movies are simply a reflection of.
I am so sick and tired of these freaks who feel the world needs to be sanitized for kids. Stop changing my shit because you can’t monitor your children. WATCH YOUR OWN FUCKING BRATS!
I’ll watch my own brats — and watch yours start smoking because some asshole villain smokes in a movie made for kids — because the director wants “realism” (or a producer gets paid off by a tobacco company) — ignoring the fact that a movie about high-school kids where they don’t say “fuck” or any other real language cannot possibly have any real “realism” — but I’ll watch your 13 year old brat start smoking — and then watch him or her die 40 years later from lung cancer — but no problem! It’s only 400,000 people a year who die from smoking, at a public health cost of about $50 BILLION a year — but no problem — spend your money!!
You all talk like 13 year olds are adults — they are the victims, not us — victims of the tobacco companies, who would go out of business in a a couple of years if they couldn’t keep hooking kids on tobacco — but no problem! It’s simply a matter of the 13 year olds taking responsibility!
What ignorant bullshit — and it costs lives and money.
Wolverine has been chomping on cigars since his first comic appearance in 1974…that’s one of his signatuire traits. He also has the power of healing, so no cancer worries.
These people seriously need to do something more productive with their time other than being “health police.” Last time I checked, LA had a massive homeless problem. I think their efforts in THAT particular direction would be much more helpful.
not adults, but kids, like 15-year-olds
A 15 year-old is smart enough to know that smoking is bad for your health. If one of them starts smoking, then it’s on that person. Unless films are telling kids that smoking is good for them, the filmmakers are not at fault.
Artistic freedom? Smoking (or not) on screen pales in comparison to the language compromises that every writer, producer and director makes in order to get a PG rating — but everybody lives with that and it has no public health consequence. Get real.
Censorship of one thing doesn’t justify censorship of another thing.
For decades, according to tobacco companies’ once-secret files, the movie industry actively collaborated with the tobacco industry to promote smoking. Tobacco companies invested millions in co-promotion deals with the studios and in product placement because they know it went right to their bottom lines. When tobacco advertising has been restricted in other media, in both the US and India, movie smoking spiked.
So, in addition to the piles of independent research evidence showing that tobacco imagery causes kids to smoke, there are other piles of documentary evidence that tobacco companies have long shaped what shows up on screen. A sensible, predictable R-rating for future smoking will remove the economic incentive to do Big Tobacco favors in the future. And if smoking’s important to a film, it stays in the picture.
Of course, there may be a few in the industry who want tobacco incentives to remain accessible. Money’s money. right? Even if it comes from companies with RICO records? But acting affronted because public health professionals point out some uncomfortable (and obvious) facts and propose the least intrusive policy answer imaginable is really chewing the scenery.
I agree with Apollo. My own thoughts are that I would like to not see smoking of any kind in movies. Also I would like to not have to hear jokes about drugs or making fun of gay people. I wish I could enjoy movies without having to be offended or have to see bad things that hurt many people I know. I usually don’t buy movies that have smoking or drugs in them. There is still way too much. I mostly stick to basic tv. When I see any of that on there I e-mail a complaint the the network.
A 15 year-old is smart enough to know that smoking is bad for your health.
Total bullshit. The reason tobacco companies are still in business is that 12-to-15-year-olds do NOT know or care that smoking is “bad for your health” — i.e., will eventually KILL you. If kids had adult judgment there would be very few smokers — then again, if kids had adult judgment they wouldn’t be kids. People start smoking when they are kids, when they DON’T have judgment. Sure it’s “on them” — I forgot that it’s a fair fight between the tobacco companies and the 13-year-olds!
So the kids who start smoking — MOST of them because of movie imagery — fuck ‘em. We need our artistic freedom to make another sequel.
Screw the anti-smoking people.
We still have freedom of speech here.
If it was good enough for Bogart and Garbo why can’t a Transformer light up a Marlboro?
If product placement sells products, then it stands to reason that lighting up onscreen may have an affect on those watching. Isn’t a well-placed, well-lit Marlboro product placement? Isn’t the goal of Marlboro or any tobacco company to sell its product?
What a silly stupid waste of money to have such an org such as “Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, the California Youth Advocacy Network, and the American Medical Association Alliance”
No one complaint of the excessive blowing of buildings and cars in movies cause the younglings will never thought of that. Yeah right!
Sadie: Yes, it’s product placement — the difference is that it is ILLEGAL for tobacco companies to pay for product placement of tobacco products in films. The tobacco companies agreed to this in 1998 as part of the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement with the AGs of 46 states.
In other words, studios can’t take any money (or other consideration) for portraying smoking in films.
This is the mystery — it would at least make sense on some (crass) level if it was purely an economic decision on the studios’ part to allow smoking.
This naturally leads people to suspect under-the-table payoffs, etc. or other rational-but-corrupt explanations for the studios’ insistence on portraying smoking in kid-rated films.
So it shouldn’t cost the studios a dime to take smoking out of kid-rated films, and it would be an enormous public health breakthrough. It SHOULD be a no-brainer, but the resistance is huge.
Given the studios’ priorities, the “artistic freedom” notion is a smokescreen, that is for sure.
So what’s really going on?
Aren’t there other forms of deviance in movies that kids can copy besides simply smoking.
Investment fraud, political back room bullying, drug dealing, infidelity are all in movies too. Do the “Don’t smoke” people think that if a kid is going smoke because it happens in a movie, aren’t they just as likely to be promiscuous because of a movie too?
so does anyone have any links or studies to back up their “facts?” because i can say all kinds of stuff are true as long as i dont need to prove it. but if we are going off of testimonials i got a few. my parents grew up in the 1950-60s and EVERYONE smoked. soldiers were still addicted to the lucky strikes they got as part of their meal ration. TV anchors smoked while on screen. and almost every movie had at least one person smoking. protagonists not antagonists. they have never smoked. both tried it and hated it. nobody forced/made them. no i smoke. i started when i was in college. mostly while driving the 14 or so hours to and from school several times a year. i needed something to do in the car and smoking has been apart of my life since. i like smoking. yes i am aware that it will cause horrible medical conditions later on in my life. but its my decision. so do movies cause you to smoke? please provide some evidence im dying to see it. thanks
For God’s sake, I saw plenty of movies featuring cigarette smoking as a kid and I never smoked. We started getting the anti-smoking lectures in grade school, and the promised side effects were enough to keep me away. Yet even after getting a twenty-minute talk on lung cancer, kids would turn to each other and say, “Hey, wanna go smoke outside?” Frankly, if a teenager is dumb enough to start smoking because he sees it in a movie, even with all the warnings already out there, that’s Darwin at work as far as I’m concerned.
I’m not 15, and I think Mad Men makes smoking look cool. Don Draper is smooth when he walks into the office at 10:00am, pours a scotch on some crackling ice, lights a butt,and turns to give an ad pitch to a full room and blows them away.
Blue –
I suppose all forms of media and entertainment should be tailored to your specific tastes then? You do realize some people aren’t easily as offended as you are, right? You do realize that some people like their entertainment not to be safe and sterile, right?
If that’s the case, Revolutionary Road is worse than Hitler.
This group fails to make their case when they cite a movie like ‘Angels & Demons’. I just saw A&D and the only smoking done there–or should I say, tobacco imagery–is by a bunch of quite ancient cardinals. Unless the youth of today aspire to become celibate old men, I can’t quite see them emulating this behavior.
And whatever happened to active parenting anyway?
Oh never mind, that was a rhetorical question. Everyone seems to expect someone else to do their damn job and raise their kids, because they don’t want to do the work themselves. They want their TV to be censored, their movies sanitized and their music dulled down to elevator level.
Oh yeah.
Jeff –
We’re not talking about your adult tastes or mine — we’re talking about kids. Nobody cares if smoking is in pictures that adults watch — it’s the smoking in pictures that kids watch. That’s the problem.
Gerald — check out SMOKEFREEMOVIES.UCSF.EDU — it is a huge repository of science and other info about all of this. It has or will point you to all of the studies and facts you’re looking for.
Smoking in movies is a complex proposition. My question is, is it necessary?
Sure people smoke, do drugs, rape, murder, rob, etc but most kids won’t emulate murder. They will try sex, drugs and\or smoking, perhaps not ONLY because it was in a movie but because it’s like everyone up the ladder saying it’s OK.
Movie studios have the responsibility to NOT promote any lifestyle but to ENTERTAIN. I smoke – not much though – and it means nothing in a movie. I want excitement, drama, comedy. Lighting or smoking a cigarette can be NONE of those – well maybe the kid puking is funny but…
Christian H. — exactly — is smoking necessary in films given (a) the tiny (or absent) actual creative, dramatic or other entertainment value of smoking as relating to the totality of a film’s production, and (b) the HUGE health risk to kids who are influenced by smoking in films — for whatever reason. The disproportionate “risk to reward” is immense.
BTW, nobody is advocating getting smoking out of all films — just the ones aimed at kids and where historical reality (Churchill with a cigar) doesn’t require it.
Nobody would care about a few films with smoking — it’s that HUNDREDS of kid-rated films have smoking in them. The majority of kid-rated films each year, in fact.
If you take the emotion and left/right politics out of this, it’s a no-brainer. I think the rating system sucks and I don’t think saying “fuck” harms anyone — but smoking in kids’ films is something the rating system could actually be an enormous help with, from a real-world, actual public health perspective.
What the fuck is wrong with that?
thank you apollo for being one of the very very few to actually post links to back up your claim. however after reviewing several of the studies(and studies cited by those studies) i fail to see any REAL connection. normally when i research information i tend to reject studies sponsored by interest groups. which this website was full of. not that the information isnt accurate it just makes sweeping conclusions. alot of the studies were based on self report and surveys. great for case studies but not so great for actual fact. there are studies that sweeping generalizations based on correlation evidence(which, say it with me, doesnt imply causation). and just googling some of these authors shows the vast majority are for tobacco control. sounds pretty bias to me. now that is to say all the information is bunk. there are some good studies on modeling behaviors of movie stars listed in there. so does smoking in movies cause kids to smoke. im not sure there is strong evidence one way or the other. take some time to research both sides of every argument. you will be surprised at how much bullshit is thrown around on both sides. its a shame there arent more third party research groups, most already have an agenda and in order to keep funding coming in you got to tweak some conclusions. its the american way baby!
Anti-smoking campaigns like this are poorly aimed. They try to control, via censorship, how characters are portrayed. Movies, television and other medias are already censored and rated. The companies who portray characters should not be blamed for promoting smoking because a character in their movie smokes. There’s not subliminal message saying, “It’s cool to smoke.” That is an individual’s interpretation of the act of the character on screen smoking.
These are the same people who will want to cover the Venus de milo’s breast because they suggest that prostitution and pornography are forms of art….
…well, some pornos are artistic I suppose.
Gerald –
The important, rigorous statistical study was done by Dartmouth Medical School researchers (Sargent?) 3 or 4 years ago — there may be updates to it and the info is on the smokefreemovies website. The study has no agenda and was not done by an interest group. Nobody would about smoking in kids’ films — or anywhere else — and neither would the tobacco companies — if it didn’t influence kids’ behavior.
Unfortunately it’s now been statistically shown that it does — and that’s what the tobacco companies count on.
apollo your saying sargent has no agenda? try googling the guy. on his bio page under associations or whatever it says tobacco control. if you list that on your bio page you got an agenda. and that statistical study is done by giving grade school students questionnaires. its based on the self report of grade school children. IT AINT FACT.
Kids are going to smoke whether they see it in the movies or their parents. Its all on how they are raised and their information. If they are going to be dumb and do it, then they are going to find ways regardless.