Tobacco.org

Just FYI: The Smoking in 'Gran Torino' Was Done for Free 

Near the end of the closing credits for Clint Eastwood's new Gran Torino is a disclaimer that caught my attention. It reads as follows:

"No person or entity associated with this film received payment or anything of value, or entered into any agreement, in connection with the depiction of tobacco products." . . . .

The site also reports that Universal Pictures (at the behest of its parent company, General Electric) has started including a somewhat weaker disclaimer on its movies that contain smoking: "The depictions of tobacco smoking contained in this film are based solely on artistic consideration and are not intended to promote tobacco consumption." Note that they don't say they weren't paid off by the tobacco industry, only that they didn't intend for it to encourage people to smoke.

The reason this is a big deal is that for decades, the tobacco companies DID pay for product placement in films. Eileen Heyes' book Tobacco USA notes that Philip Morris paid about $42,000 for Lois Lane to smoke Marlboros in Superman II, and that Sylvester Stallone got half a million bucks to use Brown & Williamson (now part of R.J. Reynolds) tobacco products in five films in the 1980s.

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Tobacco product placements on the downturn 

2009 dawns a new age for disclaimers, product placement disclaimers in particular.

From now on, the screen will also flash “The depictions of tobacco smoking contained in this film are based on artistic consideration and are not intended to promote tobacco consumption.” Warner Bros. films add, “No tobacco companies paid for product placement.”

Most experts conclude that studios don’t want to be associated with the promotion of bad health practices. But, what does this mean for the tobacco manufacturers? While putting disclaimers is an exercise of corporate social responsibility, will it be effective?

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Tobacco product placements on the downturn 

2009 dawns a new age for disclaimers, product placement disclaimers in particular.

From now on, the screen will also flash “The depictions of tobacco smoking contained in this film are based on artistic consideration and are not intended to promote tobacco consumption.” Warner Bros. films add, “No tobacco companies paid for product placement.”

Most experts conclude that studios don’t want to be associated with the promotion of bad health practices. But, what does this mean for the tobacco manufacturers? While putting disclaimers is an exercise of corporate social responsibility, will it be effective?

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• TAIWAN: Media guilty of promoting smoking, research study says 

The media may be guilty of promoting smoking among young people, with many cartoons ranking among the top television programs that show characters smoking, a recent study found.

The study on cigarettes and smoking conducted by the Bureau of Health Promotion monitored various types of television programs, television news, movies, magazines, marketing events and electronic games between July and September. The results showed that cigarette smoking scenes showed up an average of 12.55 times in movies this year. This is 20 to 26 times as much media exposure as in television shows, National Communications Commission commissioner Chung Chi-hui said.

Several movies that have topped box office sales contain scenes with characters smoking, including Cape No. 7, Lust, Caution, Kung Fu Hustle and Shaolin Soccer, she said.

From 1999 to last year, 171, or 73 percent, of movies and television programming produced by the Walt Disney Company or one of its divisions contained smoking scenes, the study showed.

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• The Dish: No smoking gun 

Moviegoers have become accustomed to the "no animals were harmed" disclaimer at the end of movies. Now comes one for a new age: "The depictions of tobacco smoking contained in this film are based solely on artistic consideration and are not intended to promote tobacco consumption." Warner Bros. also adds, at the end of "Gran Torino," among other films, that no tobacco companies paid for product placement.

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AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS CALLS FOR AN END TO "TOXIC" TOBACCO CONTENT IN HOLLYWOOD MOVIES  

Hollywood movies deliver billions of tobacco impressions to young audiences annually, and this poses one of the gravest threats to U.S. teens, says the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). On-screen tobacco recruits 390,000 new teen smokers each year in the U.S alone, and U.S. films take in 58 percent of movie box office sales globally, so this toxic tobacco content is also causing harm around the world. The AAP joins many other health groups in calling on the movie industry to stop toxic tobacco content in films and make youth-rated movies smoke free.

"On-screen tobacco is an enormous risk to our kids," said Renee Jenkins, MD, FAAP, president of AAP. "Movies with tobacco help to recruit one-third to one-half of young smokers in the U.S., and studies overseas find similar effects on young people there."

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In 2008 Films, Characters Abroad, Conflicts Hitting Close to Home  

THE LAST MISTRESS

The French feminist director Catherine Breillat’s erotic costume drama, adapted from Jules-Amédée Barbey d’Aurevilly’s novel, “Une Vielle Maîtresse” and set in 1830s Paris, is the year’s sexiest movie and has its most searing female performance in Asia Argento’s. It observes the consuming 10-year affair of a hotblooded, cigar-smoking Spanish-Italian courtesan (Ms. Argento) who flouts the rules of polite society, and a sloe-eyed dandy (Fu’ad Aït Aattou) who is unable to let her go. The study of unbridled sexual combat between two willful sensualists is a politically charged exploration of sexual and social role playing.

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• Movies, TV featuring too much smoking 

Health officials have urged movie producers to reduce or eliminate scenes of smoking in their products for the sake of improving public health.

They said parents should also help children and teenagers in the family eschew programs containing too many scenes related to smoking or tobacco products.

The Bureau of Health Promotion under the Cabinet-level Department of Health (DOH) conducted a survey of electronic media programs before the more restrictive anti-smoking regulations are set to take effect on Jan. 11, 2009.

The survey found that children and teenagers in Taiwan have been exposed to a high frequency of smoking scenes, especially in the movies.

Officials at the bureau pointed out that movies contain 20 times more smoking scenes or related images than in television programs.

Some popular movies like “Shaolin Soccer”, “Kungfu Hustle” and “Lust, Caution” favored by teenagers show smoking scenes or messages at a rate of every one or two minutes.

“Kungfu Hustle” has the highest number of scenes related to smoking.

Even the newest blockbuster “Cape No. 7” has 29 scenes, averaging one for every four minutes in the popular movie.

Even young children cannot escape from the smoke. One example was cartoon movie “One Piece” that has one scene about smoking in every episode. The frequency for “Crayon Shinchan” is 0.67 scene in each episode.

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• Media guilty of promoting smoking, research study says  

The media may be guilty of promoting smoking among young people, with many cartoons ranking among the top television programs that show characters smoking, a recent study found.

The study on cigarettes and smoking conducted by the Bureau of Health Promotion monitored various types of television programs, television news, movies, magazines, marketing events and electronic games between July and September. The results showed that cigarette smoking scenes showed up an average of 12.55 times in movies this year. This is 20 to 26 times as much media exposure as in television shows, National Communications Commission commissioner Chung Chi-hui (鍾起惠) said.

Several movies that have topped box office sales contain scenes with characters smoking, including Cape No. 7 (海角七號), Lust, Caution (色戒), Kung Fu Hustle (? and Shaolin Soccer (少林足球), she said.

From 1999 to last year, 171, or 73 percent, of movies and television programming produced by the Walt Disney Company or one of its divisions contained smoking scenes, the study showed.

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CAUGHT SMOKING: ACTRESS DEBI MAZAR ADMITS TO OCCASIONALLY SMOKING 

HAVING played one of the "60 Minutes" producers who helped bust Big Tobacco in "The Insider," Debi Mazar was red-faced this week after the film's real-life hero dressed her down for lighting up. During a live interview on BlogTalkRadio, host Olivia Wilder asked Mazar, "Are you a smoker?" "I don't have to answer that question. It's irrelevant," the actress replied. In the next breath, she admitted, "I smoke from time to time, but I got the facts and I don't smoke in front of my children." Jeffrey Wigand - the fired Brown & Williamson honcho who blew the whistle on the company for ignoring evidence that cigarettes cause cancer - was listening and called in. "You still smoking?" Wigand (who was played by Russell Crowe in the flick) asked Mazar. "I'm having a little bit here and there, yes. Is this a smoking intervention?" she said, adding, "I've had two kids. After the breast milk dries up, if [cigarettes] are sitting around, it's very tempting."

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Saluting the Rebel Underneath the T-Shirt 

But in chronicling the deeds of their hero — and the heroism of Ernesto Guevara is not something “Che” has any interest in questioning — Mr. Soderbergh and the screenwriter, Peter Buchman, restrict themselves to a narrow register of themes and effects. This is a very long song composed in about three notes. Its motifs are facial hair, tobacco smoke and earnest militant bombast.

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• CHAPMAN: What should be done about smoking in movies?  

In 1997 Ron Davis, Tobacco Control's inaugural editor, and I wrote an editorial titled Smoking in movies: is it a problem?1 Since then, a growing body of research has examined the relation between viewing of movies containing depictions of smoking and subsequent smoking among youth. Reviewing this evidence, a 2008 National Cancer Institute monograph concluded "The depiction of cigarette smoking is pervasive in movies, occurring in three-quarters or more of contemporary box-office hits. Identifiable cigarette brands appear in about one-third of movies. The total weight of evidence from cross-sectional, longitudinal and experimental studies indicates a causal relationship between exposure to depictions of smoking in movies and youth smoking initiation." . . .

In this commentary, I critically review three of the most prominent strategies proposed as ways of controlling smoking in movies. I caution that banning smoking from movies constitutes a fundamental threat to freedom of expression . . .

The growing momentum of evidence so thoroughly summarised in the National Cancer Institute report should be publicised widely, with particular efforts to do this within the movie industry. This will accelerate critical discourse within the industry, which can only heighten awareness about its role in promoting smoking. Smoke Free Movies' efforts in this regard are exemplary although, as I have argued, likely to be generating unnecessary resistance from many because of their overly absolutist guidelines that all smoking, no matter how fleeting, should trigger an R-rating. . . .

The major challenge comes with adolescent-targeted movies where smoking can have a major presence. As I have argued, it is difficult to be categorical that any smoking in a movie must mean that all such movies "promote" smoking.

But it is undeniable that many such movies do, with the exact same consequences for the health of millions that were invoked as justification for controlling tobacco advertising. If the more reasonable proposition were promoted that smoking ought to be considered as one element within movie rating panels' assessments of how a movie should be rated, I would predict that many within government and the movie industry would be more receptive and more progress would be made.

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• When Smoke Gets into Your Lungs 

Women from media and leaders in the campaign against smoking gathered for a three-day seminar to address the growing number of women and girls in the Philippines who smoke.

The health risks in tobacco, according to her, come from the over 4,000 chemical compounds found in a single tobacco stick, half of which are found naturally in tobacco leaf, while the other half are created by chemical reactions when the tobacco is burned. The smoke that gets into your lungs and in your eyes (as one popular song goes) brings in about “43 cancer-causing agents that can damage a person’s health,” according to Dr. Blanco-Limpin.

Knowing this, one can only cringe at the memory of all those movies that made smoking seem glamorous, spawning a generation of avid smokers and the cancer-causing toxins they spewed at the legion of unwitting nonsmokers. . . .

In her presentation, Atty. Josephine Buenaseda pointed out that the global tobacco industry is comprised of three major transnational corporations: Philip Morris International, British American Tobacco and Japan Tobacco Inc., whose combined revenues ring up to more than $147 billion. Meanwhile, in the Philippines, the three major players in cigarette manufacturing are Fortune Tobacco Corp., Philip Morris International and La Suerte. They have a combined market share of 99 percent. . . .

If there was one speaker at the gathering who summarized the pain and ill effects of smoking, it was Boots Anson-Roa, whose husband Pete died of lung cancer. Unknown to many, it was not just her husband whom she lost in this battle but both her parents, as well. And, as one well-known columnist/participant succinctly said during the seminar, “In this country, it is easier to ban nuclear weapons than smoking.”

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Young film-makers in bid to stub out smoking  

Young film-makers are making an emotional plea to help stamp out smoking.

Teenagers from Sunderland and County Durham have created a DVD to urge the region's MPs to back new restrictions on tobacco promotion in today's Queen's Speech.

The young people devised, starred in and directed the film about the tactics of the tobacco industry and it was premiered last week at Sunderland Empire Cinema.

Hear Our Voice, which contains some disturbing stories on what lures teenagers to start smoking, has been submitted to the Department of Health to back restrictions such as plain cigarette packs and under-the-counter displays.

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CINCOTTA: Smoked Out  

Hollywood recruits 390,000 new adolescent smokers each year -- nearly enough to replace all of the smokers who die each year from tobacco-related illnesses, of which 25,000 will be from New York. It is estimated that it costs each person $900 per year to pay for smoking-caused illnesses, and the annual health care cost caused by smoking is $817 billion. . . .

The National Cancer Institute has established a causal relationship between kids who watch smoking in their favorite movies and a lifelong habit of tobacco use.

This is the first time a government agency has come to the extremely strong conclusion that this behavior is causal. Thc NCI suggests modernizing the ratings system to rate smoking movies "R." It is estimated that 60,000 lives per year could be saved simply by changing the rating of smoking movies.

A parent-to-parent grassroots national program called Screen Out! is being undertaken by the American Medical Association Alliance with endorsements from the American Medical Association, the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, as well as the New York State Department of Health, parent-teacher organizations, hospitals, health care providers and town boards. This program is pressuring the American Picture Association of America to make all future movies rated G, PG and PG-13 smoke-free. . . .

The Screen Out! campaign is asking the companies to comply with four requests: (1) certify no payoffs, (2) require strong anti-smoking ads, (3) stop identifying tobacco brands and (4) rate new smoking movies "R."

For more information regarding smoke-free movies, go to www.smokefreemovies.ucsf.edu.

Your support in this effort would be greatly appreciated by our kids and grandkids.

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