MOVIES LINKED
TO INCREASE IN SMOKING
Copyright 2002 www.uwire.com
[ March 26th 2002 ]
Despite
a voluntary ban on product placement and payoffs
by the tobacco industry, cigarette use in movies
is occurring more than ever. A recent statewide
project by the American Lung Association of Colorado
(ALAC) found a combined 366 smoking incidents
in the five films nominated for best picture in
2001. Despite the frequent usage of cigarettes,
Gosford Park, A Beautiful Mind and In The Bedroom
all contain anti-tobacco messages as well; however,
Lord Of The Rings and Moulin Rouge do not.
The study
was conducted with the help of Colorado teen-agers
in an attempt to increase awareness of tobacco
usage in the movies. Out of the 25 films rated,
eight films did not contain any smoking, including:
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, The Mummy Returns and
Shrek. In this study teens found tobacco use was
associated with relieving stress and being attractive
and rebellious, instead of being portrayed as
being deadly.
Filmmakers
say they are trying to reflect real life; however,
leading movie stars smoke on screen four times
more often than people in real life. "Hollywood
has been glamorizing smoking in the movies for
decades and still is," said Nandra Kelm, Tobacco
Program Coordinator at the ALAC. "Unfortunately,
the hazard of tobacco use and second-hand smoke
are rarely portrayed on the screen."
According
to a recent study conducted at Dartmouth College
Medical School, the more smoking teen-agers see
in films, the more likely they are to smoke. Seeing
movies with excessive amounts of smoking tripled
the odds a teen would experiment with smoking.
Some
solutions presented by smokefreemovies.ucsf.edu
include certification of no payoffs present in
the credits of each movie containing cigarette
use. Theaters and studios must create strong anti-smoking
advertisements to be placed before each movie.
Hollywood must stop identifying tobacco brands
in movies, which includes billboards and other
advertisements in the background.
It also
must require any film that shows or implies tobacco
to be rated R. "Everything's allowable on screen.
There's nothing that's not allowable," said Jack
Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association
of America, in the documentary film "Hollywood
on Tobacco. We look at violence, sex, we listen
to the language and we look at theme, incest or
drug use, but smoking is not one of the criteria
for the ratings," Valenti said. "Cigarettes are
legal, so how could you have it affect the rating
of a picture?"
According
to the American Lung Association of Colorado:
* If
current trends continue, 86,000 Colorado youth
who are currently under the age of 18 will die
from smoking; * Colorado Hispanic middle and high
school students have the highest rate of current
tobacco and cigarette use: 17.1 percent for middle
school and 38.7 percent for high school; * At
least 4.5 million adolescents in the United States
smoke cigarettes; * Teens who smoke are three
times more likely than nonsmokers to use alcohol,
eight times more likely to use marijuana, and
22 times more likely to use cocaine; * Ninety
percent of adult tobacco users report beginning
regular use before their high school graduation.
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