RSS Feed
Twitter
October 25th, 2006 -- Written by Rodney
Smoking is officially uncool, even if cool actors are smoking because now there will be a declaimer before movies telling us that the hip folks in our movies will actually become addicted and die from smoking. Bit of a downer, but then again so is cancer. Yahoonews.com gives us this:
BOSTON (Reuters) – Film industry veterans Bob and Harvey Weinstein will put anti-smoking video messages on DVDs of movies in which people smoke — a move sought by U.S. states to combat teen smoking.
“These messages will fight false film images of healthy and hip smokers with the real hard truth of addiction and disease,” Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said in a statement on Tuesday. The attorneys general of 32 states a year ago asked Hollywood’s major movie studios to place an anti-smoking message on DVDs, videos and other home entertainment products. The Weinstein brothers, founders of moviemaker Miramax Films, were the first to respond, Blumenthal said.
Beginning with December’s release of “Clerks II” by director Kevin Smith, Weinstein’s DVDs will include an anti-smoking ad aimed at discouraging kids from lighting up. “As a former smoker, I feel like it’s my responsibility to do everything I can to educate young people about the dangers of smoking,” Harvey Weinstein said in a statement.Anti-smoking groups have intensified pressure on Hollywood this year, calling in July for the Motion Picture Association of America to require an “R” rating for movies with a non-historical depiction of smoking
.
Well this won’t ruin the movie for most, nor will it do anything to stop smoking in my opinion. To me government implemented anti smoking stuff is one big conflict of interest and a waste of money. They want to appear to care while they cash in with taxes on the tobacco, it’s all about appearances here.
I’m sure that Harvey Weinstein is trying to do the right thing, he’s a former smoker after all and he doesn’t really have a choice if the government is pressuring him but there are other ways of inspiring people to not light up. Making movies like Thank You For Smoking or just not putting the element of smoking into movies in the first place is a better solution.
And the anti smoking groups have a point with the R rating for movies with smoking, it is a bit extreme but I bet of that if law was passed smoking would become out of fashion very quickly in Hollywood.
The best way to get kids to not pick up a pack, is to make it obsolete. Like an old PC, no kid wants last years model.
Posted in
I don’t smoke, never have, and have always hated the smell of cigareette smoke. But the anti-smoking faction in this country has become so fascistic that I’m starting to side with the people who just want to light up and be left alone.
As far as anti-smoking ads on DVDs, I personally don’t think it’s an idea that’s going to do a thing to keep kids from smoking. I work with adolescents and can tell you that the anti-smoking messages aimed at them are mostly wasted. By the time a kids in 7th or 8th grade, their peer group will determine whether or not they smoke, due drugs, drinks, etc.
If the kids are in a peer group that is of an anti-establishment bent, they’ll probably do exactly the opposite of what the messages from adults tell them not to do.
When we put a bunch of multicultural “cool” and “hip” teenagers in an anti-smoking poster or anti-smoking PSA, we immedietly set off their Bullshit detector. They know the message is coming from adults, not form the “cool” and “hip” kids we adults have rapping and breaking in the anti smoking message.
The fact is that when it comes to kids who smoke, drink, do drugs, or engage in sex…the window we had to change there behavior was largely in the time before they turned 11 or 12. And usually by that time, we adults have blown it.
They might as well start having “Guns/Killing people ain’t cool” disclaimers displayed in the introduction of movies. We already have enough warning smokers that they’re killing themselves — a title screen before movings isn’t going to dispel such warnings.
I just don’t think that any anti-smoking message can be tailored to those kids who belong to a peer group where smoking is accepted. It doesn’t matter whether that message is delivered by Rob Reiner, Brad Pit, Katie Holmes, Fonzi, Snoop Dog, George W. Bush, or the Olsen Twins.
No message is going to reach teens who smoke, unless it is accompanied by a change in the peer group that they hang out with. And from what I’ve seen, there’s not that much peer group mobility after 7th grade.
These messages will not have the desired impact on those who smoke, and will simply annoy those of us who don’t.
Borat creator Sacha Baron Cohen reportedly signs a $42.5m (