A news report reveals that more than 50% of released films that showed tobacco use were youth rated. This trend contravenes the agreement of movie industry moguls to include smoking as a criterion for assigning film ratings.
Youth-rated Films Show Smoking
The analysis said 53% of 216 films showing tobacco imagery were youth-rated. The films were released between May 2007 and May 2010. A mere 15% of youth-rated films showing tobacco use were branded as containing “smoking”.
Tobacco Imagery Ignored in Ratings
Health experts say the movie industry has failed to effectively and accurately rate movies based on their smoking content. Consequently, America’s youth are being exposed to harmful tobacco use impressions in movies. Public health researchers and advocates have been putting pressure on the movie industry to stop using smoking imagery in movies accessed by youngsters. Movie depiction of tobacco imagery lures about 180,000 new young smokers each year.
No R-rating for Tobacco Impressions
The report also revealed that the movie industry constantly understated the amount of tobacco imagery portrayed in movies marketed to adolescents and children. Smoking descriptors that were usually used, minimized the amount of tobacco imagery in movies with descriptions such as “momentary”, “incidental” or “brief”. These descriptors ignored the actual amount of tobacco imagery portrayed in the movie. Moreover, no movie was given an R-rating for tobacco imagery as recommended by health experts.
Hollywood Downplays Smoking Risk
In the three-year survey, Hollywood films showed 44 billion tobacco images to audiences. Half of these were portrayed in youth-rated movies. Major studios have thus failed to give adequate information to parents about smoking in films. Any movie showing smoking should be given the R-rating to help parents. But, by labeling only a fraction of movies with smoking, Hollywood is suggesting that smoking is not an issue, opine health experts.
Background
Research reveals that up to 50% of youth are initiated to smoking by movie influences. Tobacco product placement has already been banned in movies. Despite efforts by health experts, smoking in movies still continues to influence youngsters.
Recommendations
Health experts are recommending new solutions to stop movies influencing youngsters to smoke. These include:
- Effective and strong anti-smoking ads should be shown before screening movies depicting tobacco imagery.
- Movie makers should certify that they did not receive anything of value for depicting tobacco use in their movies.
- Brand appearances should be ended.
- New movies with smoking imagery should be rated R.
