The latest data on the film industry and tobacco finds that so-called independent film companies have more than tripled their share of youth-rated films with smoking: from 12 percent in 2005 to 39 percent in 2015.
As the chart shows, the major studios, who own and are represented by the MPAA, reduced their kid-rated movies...
In results released 1 April 2016, Canadian tobacco control groups found 79 percent of Ontario adults wanted to end smoking in movies rated 14A or lower (similar to US PG-13 and lower in the US). Seventy-seven percent opposed the display of tobacco brand logos in films. Two out of three adults backed an 18A rating for future films with tobacco.
Support for smokefree movie initiatives has grown since 2011, when the Paris-based public opinion pollster Ipsos last surveyed Ontario adults...
On April 6, 2016, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the majority (59%) of PG-13 films showed smoking and other tobacco use between 2002 and 2015.
"Smoking in the Movies"—the CDC's annual report on the amount of onscreen smoking in movies as a "core surveillance indicator" of the nation's health—also concludes that R-rating future movies with smoking...
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has labeled two upcoming PG-13 films with “smoking” descriptors.
• Dear Eleanor (Sony, PG-13 | Release TBA)
Rated PG-13 for some suggestive material and smoking.
Stars Jessica Alba, Josh Lucas, Liana Liberato, Isabelle Fuhrman.
IMDb.com summary: "Two teenage girls travel across the U.S. in 1962, during the chaos of the Cuban missile crisis, in search of...
Philip Gendall, Janet Hoek, Richard Edwards, and I just published "Effect of Exposure to Smoking in Movies on Young Adult Smoking in New Zealand" in PLOS One. This paper showed that 18-25 year olds in New Zealand were affected by exposure to on-screen smoking just as youth around the world are, with people who saw more smoking being more likely to smoke.
...Direct evidence of tobacco product placement and smoking behavioral placement in French movies
Prepared by Pascal Diethelm, president, OxyRomandie
Since the early 1990s, France has one of the strictest tobacco advertising bans in the world. The Loi Évin (law named after Claude Évin, the French minister of health who drafted the law) adopted in 1991 introduced a comprehensive ban of tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship, making France compliant with the...
Kori Titus and her colleagues invited me to attend the annual Hackademy Awards where the high school students present awards to the best and worst movies for smoking.
It was a great event and an honor to meet the kids (and grownups) whose hard work has been the key data behind the global Smoke Free Movies effort.
Dr. Robert Schwartz from Ontario Canada has prepared a wonderful short video explaining how we can be so certain that smoking in movies causes kids to smoke and why the R rating (18A in Canada) will save lives and money.
Check it out here.
Ever since we launched the Smoke Free Movies campaign in March 2001, I have been wondering when there would be a lawsuit against the MPAA and the major studios it represents for continuing to allow smoking in movies it rates as suitable for youth.
On February 25, 2016 the inevitable happened.
A national class-action lawsuit was filed against the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA),...
Matthis Morgenstern and colleagues just published “Did limits on payments for tobacco placements in US movies affect how movies are made?” in Tobacco Control. They answered the question “yes.”
Specifically, they found that there was a big drop in screen time devoted to smoking after the state attorneys general included...
