News
Movies show fewer smokers onscreen
ATS Morning Minute
USA Today (7/15, Shorman) reports, “Hollywood movies are far less likely to feature characters lighting up than just five years ago, suggests an analysis published Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. … The results were praised by the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics; both called on the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to give R ratings to films featuring smoking.”
The AP (7/15, Stobbe) reports that Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros. Entertainment, and Universal City Studios “have drastically reduced smoking from their movies aimed at children and teens,” having adopted policies to show less tobacco use on screen. “Over the past five years, scenes involving tobacco dropped from an average of 23 to one per film and most of their youth movies had no smoking at all.” The AP notes the influence of movies on smoking decisions: “Experts say the more times average teens see smoking on film, the higher the odds they will try tobacco.”
AFP (7/15, Zeitvogel) reports, “With studies pointing to a link between less smoking on the silver screen and fewer teens taking up smoking, the US Department of Health and Human Services has made reducing youth exposure to onscreen smoking part of its 2010 strategic plan to cut tobacco use.” The CDC also reported that “the percentage of middle school students in the United States who smoked cigarettes fell from 11 percent to five percent between 2000 and 2009, and those who “experimented” with cigarettes fell from nearly 30 percent to 15 percent. Use of other tobacco products, such as cigars, pipes and chewing tobacco, was also down among middle schoolers, generally aged between 11 and 14.” Tobacco use among high school students also declined.
The Christian Science Monitor (7/15, Wall) reports, “Representatives of two of the three major movie companies without antismoking policies — Paramount and Sony Pictures — say they take the issue of onscreen smoking seriously and will work to further reduce images of smoking in their films. A Paramount spokesperson said that the company certifies that it does not receive payments in return for tobacco product placement in its films, and that it includes antismoking messages on its youth-rated DVDs.”
MSNBC (7/15, Rowan) reports, “To attract movie producers, almost all states offer subsidies in the form of tax credits or cash rebates…totaling approximately $1 billion annually. This amounts to tax payers supporting the movie industry,” Stanton Glantz, director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California at San Francisco, said. “The CDC’s suggestion that youth movies that depict smoking should not be eligible for such benefits should be heeded, he said.” Reuters (7/15, Beasley) also covers the story.
