movie
Government could control taste of cigarettes, raise taxes in battle against smoking
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Smoking in Movies: A New Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Core Surveillance Indicator
Tim McAfee, MD, MPH; Michael Tynan
Suggested citation for this article: McAfee T, Tynan M. Smoking in Movies: A New Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Core Surveillance Indicator. Prev Chronic Dis 2012;9:120261. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5888/pcd9.120261.
Youth who are heavily exposed to onscreen smoking are approximately 2 to 3 times as likely to begin smoking as youth who are lightly exposed (1), and the Surgeon General concluded that there is a causal relationship between depictions of smoking in the movies and smoking initiation among young people (2). Among the 3 major motion picture companies with policies aimed at reducing tobacco-use incidents in their movies, the number of onscreen incidents per youth-rated movie (rated G, PG, or PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America) decreased 95.8% from 2005 through 2010 (3). These results appeared to indicate that movie companies were making progress at reducing smoking depictions in youth-oriented movies and that a company-by-company approach of adopting voluntary policies could be effective in nearly eliminating youth exposure to tobacco imagery in movies. However, new data from 2011 published by Glantz and colleagues (4) in Preventing Chronic Disease raise serious concerns about this individual company approach.
Glantz and colleagues found that in 2011, depictions of tobacco use per youth-rated movie rebounded; estimated instances of tobacco use in 2011 were more than one-third higher than in 2010 (4). Furthermore, the authors found that the largest increase in tobacco-use incidents in youth-rated movies was among the 3 movie companies that had produced the dramatic decline from 1995 through 2010 and had policies designed to discourage depictions of smoking in their movies. As a result of this sharp rebound, the difference in tobacco-use incidents per youth-rated movie between companies with policies and companies without policies diminished in 2011 (4). This difference suggests that individual company policies may not be sufficient to sustain a reduction in youth exposure to tobacco-use and other pro-tobacco imagery in movies and that more formal, industry-wide policies are needed.
The World Health Organization and other public health groups have recommended formal policies aimed at eliminating smoking in the movies (5,6). These policies include awarding an R rating to any movie with smoking or other tobacco-use imagery (with exceptions for portrayal of actual historical figures who smoked or the portrayal of negative effects of tobacco use), certifying that no payments have been received by studios for depicting tobacco use in movies, and ending the onscreen depiction of real tobacco brands.
Reducing smoking and tobacco use in youth-oriented movies is not a niche issue. The Surgeon General has concluded that there is a causal relationship between depictions of smoking in movies and smoking initiation among young people, and the US Department of Health and Human Services has set a goal of reducing youth exposure to onscreen smoking (7). Furthermore, among the nationwide goals set by Healthy People 2020, one of the objectives is the reduction of onscreen tobacco use imagery in youth-oriented movies and on television (8). These goals and objectives were set because the population-attributable risk associated with onscreen tobacco imagery is significant (9,10).
To assess progress toward the Healthy People 2020 objective, the Office on Smoking and Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will now track and report annually on tobacco use imagery in youth-oriented movies as a core surveillance indicator by using the methods described in previous CDC publications (3,4). These data will be added to regular CDC reports to the public on smoking prevalence among youth and adults, total and per-capita cigarette consumption, and progress on tobacco control policies.
One of the major conclusions in the Surgeon General’s 2012 report on preventing tobacco use (2) was that after years of steady progress, declines in tobacco use by youth and young adults have slowed for cigarette smoking and have stalled for smokeless tobacco use (2). Each day in the United States, approximately 3,800 young people younger than 18 years smoke their first cigarette, and approximately 1,000 youth younger than 18 years become daily cigarette smokers (2). More than one-third of these smokers will eventually suffer and die from smoking-related illness. We all have a responsibility to prevent youth from becoming tobacco users, and the movie industry has a responsibility to protect our youth from exposure to tobacco use and other pro-tobacco imagery in movies that are produced and rated as appropriate for children and adolescents. Eliminating tobacco imagery in movies is an important step that should be easy to take.
Author Information
Corresponding Author: Tim McAfee, MD, MPH, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Office on Smoking and Health, 4770 Buford Hwy, NE, Mailstop K50, Atlanta, GA 30341. Telephone: 770-488-5709 . E-Mail: mtt4@cdc.gov.
Author Affiliations: Michael Tynan, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia.
References
- National Cancer Institute. Tobacco control monograph 19: the role of the media in promoting and reducing tobacco use. Bethesda (MD): US Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute; 2008.
- A report of the Surgeon General: preventing tobacco use among youth and young adults: a report of the Surgeon General, 2012. Atlanta (GA): US Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health; 2012
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Smoking in top-grossing movies — United States, 2010. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2011;60(27):910–3.
- Glantz SA, Iaccopucci A, Titus K, Polansky JR. Smoking in top-grossing US movies, 2011. Prev Chronic Dis 2012;9:E150. CrossRef PubMed
- Sargent JD, Tanski SE, Gibson J. Exposure to movie smoking among US adolescents aged 10 to 14 years: a population estimate. Pediatrics 2007;119(5):e1167–76.CrossRef PubMed
- World Health Organization. Smoke-free movies: from evidence to action. Geneva (CH): World Health Organization; 2009. http://www.who.int/tobacco/smoke_free_movies/en. Accessed 10/18/2012
- Ending the tobacco epidemic: a tobacco control strategic action plan for the US Department of Health and Human Services. Washington (DC): US Department of Health and Human Services; 2010.
- Tobacco use. In: Healthy people 2020. Washington (DC): US Department of Health and Human Services; 2010.
- Sargent JD, Tanski S, Stoolmiller M. Influence of motion picture rating on adolescent response to movie smoking. Pediatrics 2012;130(2):228–36. CrossRef PubMed
- Millett C, Glantz SA. Assigning an “18” rating to movies with tobacco imagery is essential to reduce youth smoking. Thorax 2010;65(5):377–8. Erratum in: Thorax 2010;65(9):844. CrossRef PubMed
Uncle Sam to Start Tracking Tobacco Use in Movies Aimed at Kids
http://www.takepart.com/article/2012/11/09/cdc-will-begin-tracking-tobacco-use-youth-rated-movies
The action follows a study showing on-screen smoking rose in 2011.
By Shari Roan
November 9, 2012
Protestors demonstrate against movies that promote smoking to kids worldwide outside the office of the Motion Picture Association of America February 22, 2005, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Federal health authorities said Friday they will begin monitoring how well movie studios are doing to reduce depictions of smoking and other tobacco use in youth-rated movies.
Authorities at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Office on Smoking and Health said that voluntary efforts by movie studios to reduce tobacco use in youth-rated movies have been unimpressive. Data on tobacco use in movies will be added to regular CDC reports to the public on smoking prevalence among youth and adults, total and per-capita cigarette consumption, and progress on tobacco control policies.
“We all have a responsibility to prevent youth from becoming tobacco users, and the movie industry has a responsibility to protect our youth from exposure to tobacco use and other pro-tobacco imagery in movies that are produced and rated as appropriate for children and adolescents,” said the lead author of the paper, Dr. Tim McAfee. “Eliminating tobacco imagery in movies is an important step that should be easy to take.”
MORE: PG-13 Movies May Start Teens Smoking
Understanding what motivates kids to smoke is a high priority of public-health experts. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, more than 3,800 kids a day smoke their first cigarette. And, while smoking rates have fallen over the past 40 years, rates in both adults and youths have held steady in more recent years.
Previous research shows that kids who see smoking on television and in the movies are more likely to take it up. But depictions of smoking continue to turn up in youth-rated movies. Last year, the number of on-screen smoking scenes increased, according to a study published in the October issue of the journal Preventing Chronic Disease.
The data, from Thumbs Up! Thumbs Down!, a project of Breathe California-Emigrant Trails, is based on tobacco incidents in top-grossing movies each year rated G, PG and PG-13. The study looked at 134 movies that were among the 10 top-grossing, youth-rated movies last year for at least one week.
The study found the number of tobacco incidents rose three percent (1,881 incidents) in 2011 compared to 2010 despite the fact that there were five fewer movies in the 2011 sample. The number of tobacco incidents per movie rose seven percent over 2010—13.1 incidents per movie in 2010 and 14 last year. The biggest increase in smoking depictions occurred in G and PG movies.
MORE: Smoking Rates Around the World Are Astronomical
And, while kids aren’t supposed to see R-rated movies, smoking incidents in those films rose seven percent in 2011, said the author of the study, Dr. Stanton A. Glantz, a professor of medicine for the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California, San Francisco. Glantz has been studying smoking in the movies for many years.
“There are going to be hundreds or thousands of kids who will take up smoking due to this backsliding,” Glantz told TakePart. “There is a dose response here, too—the more kids see, the more likely they will smoke.”
In a report released earlier this year, U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin identified smoking in movies and tobacco-company advertising as the primary forces that cause kids to take up smoking.
“The evidence is sufficient to conclude that there is a causal relationship between depictions of smoking in the movies and the initiation of smoking among young people,” the Surgeon General’s report noted. Images of smoking in the movies, “are powerful because they can make smoking seem like a normal, acceptable, or even attractive activity. Young people may also look up to movie stars, both on and off screen, and may want to imitate behaviors they see.”
MORE: Teen Smoking an ‘Epidemic,’ Surgeon General Says
Previous studies have also shown that depictions of smoking in the movies are more likely to influence low-risk kids to smoke. “The kids whose parents don’t smoke or kids who do well in school,” Glantz says.
The increase in on-screen smoking is further disappointing because top officials for three studios—Comcast (Universal), Disney and Time Warner—had previously committed to reductions in smoking in their movies, Glantz says. Smoking in youth-rated movies declined from 2005 to 2010.
Among these companies with stated policies discouraging smoking in movies, the percentage of movies that were tobacco-free declined by 17 percent from 2010 to 2011.
“A few studios had taken the lead in reducing the amount of smoking in their films,” Glantz says. “They accomplished it and showed it could be done. But now there is this serious back-sliding. I don’t know what accounts for that. These three studios are now about as bad as the studios that hadn’t made a lot of progress. I don’t know what happened.”
The Walt Disney Company “actively seeks to limit the depiction of smoking in movies marketed to youth,” according to a statement released by the company to TakePart.
MORE: U.S. Appeals Court Strikes Down Graphic Cigarette Warning Labels
“Disney discourages depictions of cigarette smoking in movies produced in the United States for which a Disney entity is the sole or lead producer and which are released either as a Touchstone movie or Marvel movie, and seeks to limit cigarette smoking in those movies that are not rated “R” to: scenes in which smoking is part of the historical, biographical or cultural context of the scene or is important to the character or scene from a factual or creative standpoint, or to scenes in which cigarette smoking is portrayed in an unfavorable light or the negative consequences of smoking are emphasized,” according to the statement.
The company also said it prohibits tobacco product placement and promotions and will place anti-smoking public service announcements on DVDs of new and newlyremastered titles, not rated “R,” that depict cigarette smoking and will work with theater owners to encourage the exhibition of an anti-smoking public service announcement before the theatrical exhibition of any such movie.
But the World Health Organization and other public health groups have recommended formal policies aimed at eliminating smoking in the movies, McAfee noted.
MORE: Teens: Smoking Less, Calling It ‘Scummy’ More
The Glantz study raises “serious concerns about this individual company approach,” he wrote. “This difference suggests that individual company policies may not be sufficient to sustain a reduction in youth exposure to tobacco-use and other pro-tobacco imagery in movies and that more formal, industry-wide policies are needed.”
Glantz has long argued for a modernized rating system to give movies with any tobacco use an R rating, unless the presentation of tobacco “clearly and unambiguously reflects the dangers and consequences of tobacco use,” he says. Other options to discourage smoking are to run anti-smoking messages prior to the movie and persuading movie studies to adopt policies to certify they receive no payments for depicting particular tobacco brands in their movies.
“The MPAA has refused to address this issue in a meaningful way by giving movies with smoking an R rating,” Glantz says. “They have never rated a single movie R for smoking. The goal here is to get smoking out of the movies being shown to kids.”
Question: Should movies that depict smoking receive an R rating? Tell us what you think in the comments.
Review board should ban smoking in movies for children and teens
Every year, the Toronto International Film Festival, one of the most renowned film festivals in the world, comes to that city. For a couple of weeks, Toronto is transformed into a celebration of some of the best in upcoming films. Yet there is one aspect of current movies that should not be celebrated: the high level of smoking and tobacco use that continues to appear in children and teen-rated movies in Ontario (G, PG, 14A).
Smoking in youth-rated movies is a serious public health issue. A significant body of research is in agreement that the more that youth see smoking in films, the more likely they are to start smoking.
One of the reasons tobacco’s portrayal in film is so deadly is that it typically fails to reflect reality. It is often glamourized by actors and actresses and rarely are the serious health consequences ever shown. A simple solution to this problem exists: Ensure all future movies rated for children and teens in Ontario are tobacco-free.
To be clear, no one is suggesting re-rating movies already produced.
Within Canada, the tobacco industry is restricted from advertising or promoting its products in most media, yet millions of tobacco impressions continue to be delivered to children and teens through movies annually. In 2011, 85 per cent of movies featuring tobacco were assigned a child or teen rating (G, PG, 14A) by the Ontario Film Review Board (OFRB). This resulted in the delivery of 509 million impressions to children and teens through theatre viewings alone. When you consider the amount of blu-ray and DVD movies children and teens watch, this number is even larger.
The OFRB has the power to make youth-rated movies in Ontario smoke-free, but they have opted not to. The OFRB is responsible for rating movies in Ontario based on a variety of criteria, such as violence, substance abuse and nudity among others, but smoking and tobacco use currently have no impact on a movie’s rating.
As a result, the animated feature Rango was rated PG in Ontario even though more than 50 instances of tobacco use and imagery were included.
The OFRB’s response to this issue has been to include a tobacco use advisory within the movie’s description, which is insufficient and unlikely to prevent youth smoking initiation.
We should be asking ourselves if we are being adequately served through this OFRB tobacco content advisory. Will it help make a more informed choice? Perhaps, but do you want to constantly be scrutinizing every film your children watch to ensure they aren’t being negatively influenced by smoking? Doesn’t it make more sense to simply exclude tobacco from youth-rated movies in the first place?
At the end of the day, what value is there in allowing it? Would anyone really miss it? Did anyone miss it in The Avengers? Did it hurt movie sales or audience enjoyment? This is doubtful, based on the film’s ticket sales.
The evidence-based global policy consensus supports an adult rating (18A in Ontario) for movies with smoking and tobacco use. The World Health Organization, the U.S. Surgeon General, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, Public Health Ontario’s Smoke-Free Ontario Scientific Advisory Committee and Ontario’s Tobacco Strategy Advisory Group all call for action to reduce onscreen smoking.
The only instances where smoking and tobacco should ever be allowed in a youth-rated movie is when the character being portrayed smoked or used tobacco in real life or when a movie explicitly shows the harmful health consequences of tobacco. All other forms are gratuitous and damaging to public health.
It is time to stop allowing the recruitment of a new generation of smokers through tobacco use in children and teen rated movies (G, PG, 14A). By ensuring all future movies rated for children and teens in the province are tobacco-free, we could help reduce youth smoking initiation and prevent some of the 13,000 lives lost annually in Ontario due to tobacco-related death and disease.
Lorraine Fry and Andrea Kita, are cochairs, Ontario Coalition for Smoke-Free Movies. www.smokefreemovies.ca
Stub out smoking’s ‘coolness’ on screen
Uma Thurman smoking away in a scene from Pulp Fiction. Source: Supplied
STUBBING out smoking in films aimed at teenagers could help slash the take-up rate of the habit by up to 18 per cent.
Killing the “cool” factor of cigarettes and increasing the classification rating for films depicting smoking would have a dramatic impact on youth tobacco usage, research published in the journal Pediatrics has found.
Cinematic smoking is a potent risk factor for teenagers, with every 500 smoking shots increasing the likelihood of trying a cigarette by up to 49 per cent.
Top grossing films such as Iron Man, Mission Impossible 2, Men In Black and 101 Dalmatians were among the hits watched by the 6500 children in the study.
Last year the animated film Rango was dubbed a public health hazard for featuring characters who smoked at least 60 times.
Related Coverage
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- How tobacco companies dodge bans Herald Sun, 21 Jun 2012
- Building laws to stub out smokes Courier Mail, 7 Jun 2012
- Smoking parents an ill wind for kids Herald Sun, 23 May 2012
- Plan to kick our $5 billion smoking habit Perth Now, 21 Jan 2012
The animal cast of The Fantastic Mr Fox were also clocked puffing away more than 50 times.
“Hollywood plays a role by making smoking look really good,” said lead researcher James Sargent, of the Norris Cotton Cancer Centre.
“By eliminating smoking in movies marketed to youth (it would) lower adolescent smoking by as much as one-fifth.”
American films are rated by an industry body while Australian audiences have movies assessed independently by the Classification Board.
Australian classification guidelines “do not specifically identify smoking as a classifiable element” but do consider social issues, a spokesman for the Attorney-General’s Department said yesterday.
Content such as smoking can be referred to consumer advice, he said.
The Australian Council on Children and the Media said smoking, product placement and on-screen violence were concerning issues.
“Our classification system is based on quite old-fashioned notions of what offends sensibilities and not necessarily on what causes harm,” ACCM president Elizabeth Handsley said.
“If we had a system that was based purely on harm and addressed the question of harm thoroughly, rather than as an add-on, we might well see things like smoking treated far more seriously than we currently do.”
Smoking is estimated to cost the national health care system more than $31 billion a year. Just over 60 per cent of smokers first took up the habit when aged between 15-19 years, data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows.
But while researchers urged smoke-heavy flicks be given a higher classification rating, parents also needed to help steer teens away from danger.
“Authoritative parents” who are “effective in monitoring their children” have a strong track record in lowering tobacco use, the study found.
“It is also important to motivate and assist parents in restricting access to these movies, which would further reduce adolescent exposure to onscreen smoking,” the authors wrote.
Influence of Motion Picture Rating on Adolescent Response to Movie Smoking
Download PDF : peds.2011-1787.full
Should Movies Be Rated ‘R’ … for Smoking?
http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/10/should-movies-be-rated-r-for-smoking/
In a movie, when a character smokes, is that effectively an advertisement for smoking?
Researchers from the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth have found a strong relationship between movie smoking exposure in films rated PG-13 and adolescent smoking. The relationship between movie smoking and the habit itself isn’t a new one, but in the past, the precise association has been unclear. Was it the visuals of smoking itself, or the exposure to other adult-oriented content in movies depicting smoking, like sex and violence, which promoted the smoking behavior, or were young people who tend to see movies depicting adult behavior that just happens to include smoking are also more likely to smoke?
In a study published in the journal Pediatrics, researchers found that exposure to smoking in movies with a PG-13 rating had essentially the same impact on adolescent smoking as exposure to smoking in movies R-rated movies, suggesting, they say, that it is the smoking itself, rather than the other adult content or an attraction to that content, which causes the association.
The solution offered is simple: “an unambiguous R rating for smoking” — not to increase the number of movies rated R, but to decrease the amount of smoking in movies aimed at the teenaged audience. The Motion Picture Association of America already considers smoking a factor in rating a film, and may include it in the explanatory description. For example, 2011’s “Rango
” was rated PG for “rude humor, language, action and smoking.” But smoking alone is not enough to earn a film an R. If it were, these researchers argue, then filmmakers seeking to reach a wider audience would be less likely to include smoking in their movies.
New Smokefreemovies ad: Tobacco bought its way into movies. It’s time to get it out again.
See the actual ad http://www.smokefreemovies.ucsf.edu/ourads/ad_sfm85.htm
Smoke Free Movies has launched a series of print advertisements in Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and other publications. This advertisement first ran on April 25, 2012 in The Hollywood Reporter and Variety.
Tobacco bought its way into movies. It’s time to get it out again.
[Image: Detail of 1948 Chesterfield cigarette advertisement]
[Caption:]
What’s changed for audiences? In 2011, they saw Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, Daniel Craig, Bryan Cranston and Phillip Seymour Hoffman using Marlboro, Kool, Camel and Copenhagen brands in five different PG-13 and R-rated films from one major studio.
[Text:]
First, cross-promotion
During Hollywood’s “Golden Age,” more than two-thirds of America’s top adult box office stars advertised tobacco brands.
What did film studios get in return for brokering these deals? Valuable national ad campaigns plugging their contract stars and latest films, paid for by the tobacco industry.
What did the tobacco companies get out of it? Stars smoking on screen reinforced every cent the companies spent on their brand advertising.
Then product placement
In the early 1950s, tobacco promotion shifted to TV. By the time tobacco ads were barred from radio and TV in 1970, Hollywood no longer kept brands off screen. So, through at least the early 1990s, tobacco companies again bought their way into movies through product placement deals involving hundreds of films.
Exposure led to a 1998 legal agreement with state Attorney Generals that barred paid brand placement by domestic tobacco companies. Yet smoking in mainstream movies continued to climb, peaking as late as 2005.
Movies still sell smoking
In 2011, kid-rated films delivered twice as many tobacco exposures as in 2010. Whoever decides it, top stars continue to be associated with tobacco brands on screen (above).
Bottom line? Movies continue to recruit large numbers of new young smokers who replace the adult smokers killed by tobacco.
The R-rating solution
In March 2012, the U.S. Surgeon General reviewed the scientific evidence and history of commercial links between the tobacco and film industries. She then joined other leading health authorities in concluding that the adoption of the R-rating for all future films with tobacco imagery, excepting films that depict tobacco’s real health consequences or portray actual historical people who smoked, would contribute to a reduction in youth smoking.
The tobacco industry has exploited movies for at least seven out of the last nine decades. The R-rating will ensure that the movies young people see most often are, in the future, tobacco-free.
[Pull-quote:]
“Tobacco company advertising and promotional activities cause adolescent and young adult smoking initiation and are compounded by depictions of smoking in the movies.” — U.S. Surgeon General, March 2012
[Sponsors:]
American Academy of Pediatrics
American Heart Association
Legacy
American Lung Association
American Medical Association
Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights
American Public Health Association
Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids
Smoke Free Movies
Review tobacco’s history on screen and evidence-based policy recommendations in Preventing Tobacco Use Among Youth and Young Adults: A Report of the Surgeon General (2012), Chapter 5: The tobacco industry’s influences on the use of tobacco among youth. http://1.usa.gov/youthsmoking.
Ad sample courtesy of Stanford Research into the Impact of Tobacco Advertising (SRITA):tobacco.stanford.edu.