Photo du Jour 516
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Tiger Woods In "Serious" Condition After Car Crash
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Photos from Black Friday
Builder of Oakland's Fox Theater Once Imprisoned For 'White Slavery'
A group at UCSF estimates that tobacco products in general-admission films are raising a whole lot of new, young smokers. The solution: slap an R on any film in which smoking is portrayed as having zero health consequences, since kids aren't mature enough to understand the real-life dangers of tobacco.
We meet that idea with skepticism; it is with vivid detail that we recall the extensive anti-smoking education of our youth, and our impression of smokers (both juvenile and adult) is that they've always been plenty aware of the disadvantages and simply don't care. Until your teeth start bronzing and the doctors have to perforate your throat, it's an awfully appealing nervous habit for those of us who simply must be orally fixated throughout the day.
But we're not a fraction as smart as the folks at UCSF, so we'll give them the benefit of the doubt. Currently, an R-rating for tobacco is being stalled by the MPAA, an advocacy group for the six major studios that's awfully good at manipulating opinion. The UCSF group, on the other hand, could stand to take a few lessons from the Made to Stick guys, as their website is just about the least compelling thing we've ever seen. In fact, we weren't even going to post about it, because there's no easy way to sum things up -- but we just couldn't resist a table that equates Disney with tens of thousands of deaths.
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MPAA, an advocacy group for the six major studios that's awfully good at manipulating opinion
The MPAA operate the ratings system. It's their choice to set the ratings criteria.
And they're doing a bang-up job of it.
On the wall of the main floor of the UCSF library, right by the tobacco documents collection, there's a copy of a letter signed by Sly Stallone.
It's a contract for $500,000 to overtly smoke a particular brand of cigs in five movies.
You can see a scan at the website linked above, which isn't all that bad (in my opinion).
Anyway, cigarette marketing is very profitable for Hollywood, which is why the MPAA isn't doing anything about it.
People who smoke recognize and are well aware of the health risks. It's very, very obvious to everyone involved from young children on up that smoking is very hazardous to your health. The problem is that the people who smoke simply don't care. Either they adopt a "gonna die anyway" attitude or they casually ignore the health risks because they haven't directly manifested themselves yet.
I see absolutely nothing wrong with any form of cigarette marketing as a result. It's basically a test as to whether you're going to do something amazingly stupid, addictive, and pay quite a bit just to do so. If you're stupid enough to ignore the risks (and as long as you aren't puffing out your second-hand smoke anywhere near me or your captive children) then it's not my responsibility to keep you from killing yourself.