Smoking in a movie = R Rating??

[Peter_Lowry]

I saw this on the news today, and thought I would post the story here for everyone to chew on...

Slap "R" rating on films with smoking: Lung Association

TORONTO - The Lung Association in Ontario is lobbying for all films that show smoking to be given a restricted rating, preventing anyone under 18 from seeing those movies.

The association presented a report by its youth tobacco team on Weedless Wednesday to the government — the day Canadians are encouraged to kick the habit.

The team included an American study that concluded the more young people saw smoking in films, the more likely they were to start smoking.

"It's the one girl who looks up to Julia Roberts and sees her smoke and feels like she has to be influenced by it," said Michelle Tham, 18, a member of the team.

The association says one in five high school students smoke.

"This would be an incentive for [filmmakers] to remove the product entirely," said Susan Berek of the Ontario Tobacco Free Network.

Alan Goluboff, head of the Directors Guild of Canada, scoffed at the idea. He warns such a law would kill Canadian filmmaking.
"The whole concept is absolutely ridiculous … placing that kind of creative restriction on the whims of an artist is dangerous."

Tham says any artist should be able to use his or her creativity to do a scene without using cigarettes.

Peter Fonseco, parliamentary secretary to Ontario Health Minister George Smitherman, says the proposal would be taken seriously if it shows an R rating would make a "measurable difference in terms of Ontarians smoking or not."

Reprinted from CBC.ca:
http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2004/01/21/smokingmovies_040121

It's an interesting idea, but what do you think about it?

Peter

[Furious D]

If you take up smoking simply because you saw somebody doing it on TV or in a movie then it's just simply thinning the herd, in my opinion.

But I can get rather cranky on the topic of cigarettes and those who should know better, but still enslave themselves to coporate jackals of the tobacco industry, in the vain attempt to 'look cool.' :mad:

Wasn't there a scandal a few years ago where it was discovered that some actor was paid $500 Gs to smoke in his movies?

[Jeremy Knox]

It's amazing that people get paid to think this stuff up.

Some days I don't know who to feel comptemt for more...

The tobacco makers who poisons millions a years just for the sake of money.

The anti-tobacco people who spend millions a year trying to stop people from smoking with these bonehead ideas.

Then there's these teenagers who keep smoking when it's pretty damn obvious by now that it'll kill you. In Canada we have pictures or diseased gums, lungs and brains on the packs. People still smoke, cuz they're addicted, but WHY DO THESE IDIOT KIDS SMOKE????

Actually, it's a rhetorical question. I know the answer.

See, the reason people why keep smoking or eating fatty foods, or driving crappy four door automatic cars or watching Michael Bay movies is simple...

They're stupid.

It took me years to figure it out and years to accept it, but I finally did. It was a shock, but it was all so simple. PEOPLE ARE MORONS.

I don't blame society, the economy, peer pressure, political climate, poverty, crass marketing, drugs or anything else any more for the way the world is. Because those are merely secondary characteristics of a much bigger problem.

This problem is that people, as a rule, do not like to use their brains whatsoever. are complete idiots, and live in a completely narcassistic fantasyland of ignorance. The young think they'll live forever, the old think they'll die a beautiful death. Everyone walks around in a bubble of self-gratification, self-absorbtion, self-centeredness and self-congratulation. You see extreme examples like Michael Jackson, Prince and David Guest, but the reality is that everyone does it.

So they can slap R-ratings on movies that feature smoking if they like. Won't change a thing. In fact, I'll protest it because I don't think that movies have that kind of an influence on people.
Plus I don't want to see this catching on. Someone eats fatty foods... R rating. Someone drives a vehicle in an unsafe manner... R rating. Someone has sex outside of marriage... R rating. Which means studios will be forced to make more PG-13 movies like "Lizzie McGuire" and no one wants that!

JK13

[The Baron]

By this form of logic, many classic motion pictures from the "Golden Age" of Hollywood would be unable to get television airplay without being cut to ribbons.

Humphrey Bogart movies will now be rated R. Same with the films of Charles Boyer, and countless others.

This is the same type of thinking that makes it near impossible to see Three Stooges shorts on TV... Children might emulate the Stooges, and bash each other over the heads with hammers.

Back in the Dark Ages, when I was growing up, kids started smoking because they saw it in their own homes. Their parents smoked, and parents are the primary role-models for children. No matter how often parents tell their children not to smoke, the hypocracy of "do as I say, not as I do," will throw the object lesson into a gray area, and kids will smoke.

Movies don't teach people how to live. That's the job of parents.

Nowadays, if you want to spot the villain in many movies, look for the character with the cigarette dangling from his or her lips.

As far as movies like "Lizzie Maguire" and their ilk are concerned, I for one am waiting for Hillary Duff and the Olsen Twins to turn 18... Because you know those Playboy pictorials won't be far behind.

Yeah... I'm a bit of a dirty old man. So sue me.

[El Duderino Diablo]

"It's the one girl who looks up to Julia Roberts and sees her smoke and feels like she has to be influenced by it," said Michelle Tham, 18, a member of the team.

Well Michell, it's up to that one girl to develop the capacity for critical thought and apply it to the choices she makes in life. Or not. In which case, as D pointed out, her choice will go towards thinning the herd.

Good job on not giving poeple credit for intelligence or independent thinking. A born beaurocrat, for sure.
Oh, my head hurts now.

[AmaiStina]

Originally posted by Jeremy Knox
why keep smoking or eating fatty foods, or driving crappy four door automatic cars or watching Michael Bay movies is simple...

This problem is that people, as a rule, do not like to use their brains whatsoever.

basically. and we humans have this tendency to Choose to do things that are bad for us.... unhealthy eating, reading, breathing, sleeping, dressing, grooming, loving, lusting habits.

[Furious D]

Originally posted by AmaiStina
basically. and we humans have this tendency to Choose to do things that are bad for us.... unhealthy eating, reading, breathing, sleeping, dressing, grooming, loving, lusting habits.

Thank god for that!;)

If people only did the right thing, then we'd have the most boring culture in the world.

[KevinCarr]

I think this idea is one of the stupidest things that's come out of Hollywood since "Cop Rock." By this logic, serial killers (in teen slasher films) and unsafe sex (like being a hooker in "Pretty Woman") would be condoned because they get PG-13 ratings.

And what about having the bad guy smoke? In the movie "Oliver and Company," a Disney film, this would be R? And what if Disney decided to rerelease "Alice in Wonderland" into the theaters? Would the caterpillar with the bong constitute an R rating?

How far up their asses are these people's heads? Filmmakers have enough trouble jumping through hoops for silly reasons to retain ratings.

You've gotta see the South Park episode that rails Rob Reiner for his anti-smoking crusade. (FYI, he won't allow smoking in Castle Rock movies.) It's a riot.

I've had two beloved relatives die of smoking-related illnesses. But I still believe people should be allowed to light up (or be shown lighting up in a movie) if they want to.

[The Baron]

Originally posted by KevinCarr
And what if Disney decided to rerelease "Alice in Wonderland" into the theaters? Would the caterpillar with the bong constitute an R rating?


Well, technically, he's smoking out of a hookah. But aside from that, the caterpillar is seated on what is obviously an amenita muscaria mushroom, a highly toxic, psychotropic fungus which has been used by Eleusinian priests of ancient Greece and Siberian shamans for thousands of years. The caterpillar is telling Alice to eat from one side or other of the mushroom... A trick that if kids were stupid enough to try, would most definitely result in their deaths. But does that mean that children are smart enough not to eat toadstools, and stupid enough to smoke? This takes me right back to parental responsibility. Children will emulate their parents before they do movie characters.


How far up their asses are these people's heads?

Sufficiently far enough that their sphynctors are cutting off the oxygen to their brains.

It's a sad state of affairs when organizations like a ratings board are willing to allow parents to slough off their duties. Teaching your children is not the responsibilty of filmmakers. Movies exist to entertain, sometimes to enlighten, but not to babysit and teach values to young people.

Wait a minute... I'm preaching to the congregation. *sigh* Oh well, maybe a parent is reading this, too.

[Furious D]

All I have to say is that when I was a kid I watched all kinds of old Warner Bros. Cartoons. I didn't drop an anvil on anybody's head, just because I saw Bugs Bunny do it.

Oh, wait, there was that one time....;)

[GiGi]

Does it merit an R rating? No. I think movie makers shoudl consider that smoking in films influence youngsters (it did me I think) and be careful. But sometimes, smoking is a trait of a character. Like a raging alcohlic who abuses his wife or etc. It just makes the character. There will always be people who smoke. As long as its relevent to the story (as well as sex scenes...I hate tits thrown in so there are tits in a movie) leave it alone. It's art and a statement.

[Seedy Edgewick]

For anyone who wants to know why people take up smoking:

It gives you a buzz. For about $4, you can get 20 short buzzes. Legally. Plus, the more people rail against smoking, the more kids will see smoking as a rebellious act. Forbidden fruit is always sweeter.

Dipping snuff (or chewing) gives you a stronger buzz, but if any juice trickles down your throat, you get REALLY sick. With that said, I knew a kid when I was 15 who dipped snuff and NEVER spat. I always wondered how long it took him to get his stomach trained.

Foreign cigarettes are usually stronger than American ones. Clove cigarettes add an interesting flavor (and odor) while intensifying the buzz.

And they ain't goin' anywhere. Tobacco is ingrained in our (American) culture as strongly as guns. It's one of the reasons America was economically successful 300 years ago.

I've heard that, if someone smokes on a TV show, the show gets fined per instance.

Make movies in which people smoke rated R, and watch the numbers of teen smokers increase. They're gonna wonder what the big deal is.