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Monday, July 7, 2008
Is Hollywood making smoking cool again?
Hollywood films of the 1940s were packed full of people smoking. But portrayals of people smoking in film decreased between 1950 and 1990, coinciding with the decline of smoking among the general population.
But since 1990 the trend has gone in the other direction again, with positive images of smoking increasing in frequency, especially in films aimed at young people. A poster of Uma Thurman smoking in Pulp Fiction and a picture of actor Billy Bob Thornton drawing deeply on a cigarette on the cover of a 2005 edition of Life magazine illustrate the trend.
Now the British Medical Association is calling on Hollywood to cut smoking scenes from films and in the media, according to today’s London Times.
A report called “Forever Cool” says that film censors should take into account pro-smoking elements in films when issuing a license, and films portraying smoking in a “positive” light should be preceded by anti-smoking advertisements.
Vivienne Nathanson, the British Medical Association’s head of science and ethics, singled out the film Independence Day, in which she said actor Will Smith lit a cigar every time he dispatched an alien.
Nathanson said that last year’s smoking ban in public places in England had cut the number of smokers. “Tens of thousands have given up, but smoking is still at high levels and we still have children starting to smoke. The decline in smoking was very fast 20 years ago, but it has slowed. And experience in Ireland, which introduced the smoking ban earlier, shows that people can begin to slip back into smoking.”
And that’s why, she said, it’s so important for Hollywood to act now to cut smoking scenes.
