Lenore needs your help!!!

OMG it's scary!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My dad smoked alot and died from cancer when I was 11.

If a movie has scenes involving people smoking and it's filmed in a way that glorifies it or makes it look cool, then MAYBE it should get an R rating.

What kind of rating would you give a movie like "Coffee & Cigarrettes" or Popeye The Sailor Man?
I'm sure Baseball has caused alot more kids to use chewing-tobacco than the movies.

I think the rating system is a bunch of BS anyways...Beat someone to death get a PG-13 Rating, Flash a boob get an R rating.

Anyways Tobacco is bad for you.

Then again...maybe not.

that's a somewhat deeply-reaching effort on behalf of activists. understandably, a lot of what's illustrated on screen is glamourized simply on account of the fact that movies are about 100 minutes long and there's generally a story being told. rarely is that story about the socially acceptable addictions or indulgences of those depicted. more often, those foibles are just used as set pieces to make talent seem more *real*. there are plenty of movies that address the consequences of alcohol, tobacco, drug, food and sex addiction. there are even movies that go out of their way to leave those things out. vinnie gallo made a conscious effort to leave alcohol out of buff '66. it doesn't appear in a single frame of the movie--not coincidentally, deliberately. in "the brown bunny," he goes out of his way to de-glamourize these things thru daisy's character. he writes songs against them too. all of this and people still think he's a junkie or offer him booze and smokes.

in other words, does anyone really fucking pay attention anyway? certain things are ubiquitous to society. is it ineffective to stand for or against something? i don't think so. i think there's always a chance it will affect someone or that someone will pick up the threads and understand the message. should expression be legislated away? no, but it is anyway. language, violence, sex, drug use and innuendo are all legislated in film, tv and media. is smoking drug use? maybe. maybe that's the issue.

ultimately, directors have a platform that people pay to hear. what they decide to do with it is their own business if they operate outside the machine of industry. movies don't have to be rated. movies don't have to be produced by studios. movies don't have to be made by union laborers. movies don't have to be made with crews. movies can depict actual acts of sex with fluid exchange. movies can depict graphic drug use. movies can depict real and or simulated violence. however, in doing any of these things, without a high level of commitment to yr work and understanding of the system, you marginalize yrself and yr work and become wholly responsible for seeing that it be forced back between the margins instead of outside of them.
it's that or you play by the rules and have everyone support you. maybe smoking should be made grounds for an R rating. maybe it would prove a catalyst for larger reaction from filmmakers and studios. maybe the margins would be made a little narrower.

there's a much larger picture out there and i'm not sure yr all seeing it. sometimes rules are the best things that can happen.

you can get in touch with me if you want more info. i can't get into certain details on a public board.

look at what happened in the 30's when film was incredibly over-legislated. there was a fantastic creative response to it. look at the films made right before the over-legislation, then look at those made during and after. there's history here and it's being ignored.

[Edited on Jun 01, 2004 by visitord]

"in "the brown bunny," he goes out of his way to de-glamourize these things thru daisy's character. he writes songs against them too. all of this and people still think he's a junkie or offer him booze and smokes."

Well Gallo is an oddball to say the least...Brown Bunny was censored because of the Blow Job scene. ( )
People think he does drug for the weird comments he makes.

I have nothing againt movies getting R ratings, but I dont like it when Directors feel forced to edit a movie just to please the critics.

I found this while surfing...
Who said smoking wasnt cool?....ugh!