Lenore needs your help!!!

Paying too much attention to something is negative reinforcement. Every time an album is labelled for adult language, thousands more children want to listen to it. We are fooling ourselves if we think that children do not watch R rated movies. They watch them because they're not supposed to.

I'm a writer and a film student. I personaly think that cigarettes are the single stupidest and most loathesome products on the market. I think it's despicable that cigarettes are still legal.

On the other hand, however, I often incorporate cigarettes into my stories and scripts. My own rule is that I never give them to a character who is happy with their life (then again, few of my characters are ever happy with their lives). I usually use them to demonstrate that a particular character is trying to slowly kill themselves.

I don't think that cigarettes should make movies automatically R rated. It's restrictive to art forms. However, the MPAA is bullshit anyway. Since they aren't technically allowed to be in charge of content control, they give your film a rating and then leave it to you to figure out what they didn't like about it. They aren't allowed to tell you what's wrong with it. It's a system which allows for little to no appeals to their decision, and there is no democracy of any sort in the system, so they can basically do whatever the hell they want and nobody can stop them. There have been films which were perfectly tame and have been given R ratings for such things as homosexuality. It's really disgusting.

As for the polls:

I find the ads with real examples to be the most effective, but this might have something to do with the fact that my grandfather died of lung problems from smoking. I know, he was old and would have died around the same time anyway, but it was the most painful and degrading thing I've ever seen to see him lying in bed hooked up to tubes with no control over his bodily functions.

The rating system should be abolished. It forces directors to cut their films up so they can get an R rating and get people in the theaters. Europeans get to see it unedited, even American films. And it's always the right-wing bugaboos like boobs, and pleasure-sins, such as smoking - not so much violence and explosions, which they like.

You've summed up my arguments quite well.

As for which anti-smoking ads have the most effect - I don't smoke, so I don't really pay attention to them. I like the "Truth" ads, but they really need to start backing things up with sources flashed on the bottom of the screen or something. Some of their "he didn't read this memo buried in the bottom of a file he doesn't even have in his office" stuff drives me batshit crazy. Of COURSE he didn't read it.

I like the "shock value" ads, but only because I'm kind of into weird, disturbing images. That, and I really do think they might work.

Oops... guess I was wrong in my last post. Heh.

Those "Truth" ads make me want to take up a three pack a day habit. Sanctimonious assholes.

See, now THAT freaks me out - not the commercials. Sorry for your mom and you, Lenore.

The 'mommy and daddy are going to die because they smoke' angle sounds pretty good to me. It doesn't get the parents to stop, but I think it makes the kids think twice before doing it themselves. I know it worked for me.

I once knew a girl who admitted that she started smoking because it was the easiest way to kill herself...I doubt she'll feel the same way 30-50 years down the road when that catches up to her.

Why should films suffer due to the marketing efforts of big tobacco companies? The whole intent to attach an R rating is to force children not to be exposed to such behavior on screen. But what about when the kids go to 7-11 or any corner store and are exposed to the marketing? It's a ridiculous concept that these films should get an R rating. And it's more of a P.R. move on the behalf of the MPAA than anything else.

And whys is the MPAA concerned with this, yet so lax on the issues of violence and brutality in films? Of course kids can sneak into R rated films and will continue to do so, but what about films that are PG or PG-13 that depict behavior that is just destructive and questionable.

I know that this topic brings up questions of censorship and freedom of expression, but in the big picture I'd accept more of these so-called "morality" decisions of there was actually more of a logic to them. The fact that violence and brutality--and I'm not talking simply blood and gore--is often ignored but other issues like smoking are focused on makes me lose any faith in the intentions of these attempts at self regulation in the movie industry.

People are worried about kids seeing images of smoking in films, yet you can watch "Fear Factor" in prime time and watch people humliate themselves. Or "The Swan" where women mutilate themselves to look like some precanned concept of beauty.

It all seems so arbitrary and reactionary more than anything else. And it ultimately makes gestures like these seem hypocritical in the big picture.

Wait, now I'm confused. Who's FOR it?

Ahh. Sorry for the mixup. But the idea that this issue should be focused on while there are other issues that might have more of an impact exist still holds true.

Don't smoke kids! But if you can eat a bunch of worms in three minutes and win a prize, then that's okay. And oh yeah kids, your mom isn't pretty enough and should get tons of painful plastic surgery. That's a "positive" message, right?

The MPAA is not an arbiter of behavioral or health issues for minors.

Nonetheless, as a voluntary association of motion picture artists, MPAA has already gone beyond its pure responsibilities and given valuable guidance to the public on the general nature of motion pictures being released. Its PG, PG-13 and R ratings ALREADY give notice to the parents of minors that those movies may contain issues that the parents should discuss with their children.

The MPAA is not our mother or father. "Parental Guidance" means parental guidance.

[Edited on May 31, 2004 by scottie]

as a parent, it bugs me that people feel they have to make organizations to help parent my child. granted, my child is a baby, but it is really annoying as to how much artistic censorship will take place at the expense of overprotective dogooders. i hate the idea of keeping a child shielded from reality but also hate the idea of overexposure and desensitizing. be reasonable, people. and have a bit of moderation. lighting up in every scene won't make me want to smoke or think it's cool. it will just annoy me. but no lighting up won't make much difference. kids will see others smoke, their parents and other kids. it's part of the movie, not an advertisement. no one is doing my daughter a favor by taking smoking out of movies. all the money used for the efforts to do so could be used for something useful like school or even just making the movie better.

I do agree that parental guidance means parental guidance. This whole "talk and communicate with your children" thing doesn't happen enough with families. Kids aren't as easily swayed as they are portrayed. kids make decisions and need their parents for when they have questions.



[Edited on May 31, 2004 by schoolgirl]

*not sure if I answered the question*

Yes! Parents can figure it out themselves. They can read the reviews. It's not that hard to figure out which films are inappropriate for your kids. But the rating system has the effect of making directors chop up scenes for dumb arbitrary reasons. You see a boob, you see a boob. You see a cigarette, you see a cigarette. It's the whole context of the scene and the movie that makes it suitable or not. But the directors, and the distributors of the movie are pressured to pass a certain boob/cigartette score so they can get a rating that won't hurt the movie financially. Enough already with the FCC/RIAA/MPAA - we don't need it. It's from another time.

The world is drenched in boobs and cigarettes - leave art alone. We'll see it on the DVD anyway.

Ok we all know smoking is unhealthy.. and thats pretty much beaten into our heads since the day we set foot into this world. Something that SHOULD be beaten into our heads is that we are responsible for our actions as well.. AND the consequences of them. Hence the before and after picture of that man and his family.. which is.. freakish and sad to say the least.

Trying to remove smoking from our line of site undermines our ultimate ability of making decisions based on consequence. They think its better to try to make us forget it exists? Well thats pretty impossible.. but typical. And they want to tamper with an artistic medium like film to try and do so too. James Bond doesn't even smoke anymore! Blasphemy.. but is that HIS decision? I dunno. But I don't smoke. And thats mine.

Lenore I'm sorry about your mother. My mother and grandmother (who has passed on now) had cancer several different times. I wish you all luck and a late happy birthday to you AND luck with your paper. Papers I could never write..

[Edited on May 31, 2004 by NG_Resonance]

I agree with the earlier mention of the arbitrary nature of the decision. By rights. shouldn't the standard also apply to alcohol, guns, anything really that can do harm? Also, as Super Size Me mentioned, obesity is fast approaching smoking as the number one cause of preventable death in the U.S., so shouldn't food on-screen warrant an R?

As for the anti-smoking ads, I've never found any particularly effective. I think that the danger of smoking is self-evident; sticking something on fire into one's mouth is never a good idea.

Since "Super Size Me" was mentioned, I just want to add some personal perspective on health, smoking and other addictions.

When I quit smoking I was not a heavy smoker, but I felt pangs. It was not tough for me to do, but that was only my experience.

When I quit coffee after some nasty stomach issues, that was similar. Headaches and urges to have a cup of joe were there, but nothng bad.

But in the past few months I had decided to cut down on sugar and sodas. Holy shit! I have gotten--and STILL get--some of the worst headaches I have ever had in my life. And I am NOT a headache person. I guess based on this knowledge, I know my body really, really, really misses high-fructose corn syup and sugar.

The point being I think in the U.S. people focus too hard on ONE supposed "bad" habit and ignore the effects of other things in the world. There seems to be no balance to people's ideas of health and it always seems that what people are AGAINST others taking is based on fad/fashion than what they really need to live a balanced and healthy life.

Smoking is bad. But it's not so bad it should affect movie ratings and MPAA policy.

I think statistic ads make me smoke a lot.... TRUTH

hehe I almost typed sadistic

How you can state this and still be anti-censorship I do not know.

Trust me, I am an adamant anti-smoker and I vote firmly for the abolisment of smoking in public enclosed areas where you are fooking others with your actions but to outlaw cigarettes would not only be wrong, but ineffective. The LAST thing we need right now is more illegal drugs that we cannot regulate; if people want to smoke it, snort it, or shoot it - let them. Illegal drugs are just another sort of censorship.

That said, should smoking be alowed in films - yes. If parents are worried about their kids smoking they should put down the damn cigarette themselves and stop blaming the media. %65 of underage smokers in the United States are exposed to it first in their home (Pan American Heath Organization survey, 2001).

Yeahp and it was Beavis's fault that those kids burned their house down back in the day - not that their parents had left them home alone for 16 hours unattended.

Instead of all these anti-smoking campaigns perhaps we should be looking into more education for parents.