The MPAA, the Motion Picture Association of America, is Hollywood's political arm.
The MPAA also manages the rating
system and could fix
the problem of smoking in the movies.
Rather than acknowledge
the problem and recognize Hollywood's responsibility
to deal with it, past MPAA president Jack Valenti parroted
the tobacco industry's line:
"Everything's allowable on screen. There's
nothing that's not allowable. If you're an adult in
America, under our Constitution and the First
Amendment, you can see anything you choose to see,
listen to anything you want to listen to and read anything
you choose to read. But for children, there would be
restrictions under our voluntary movie rating system.
We look at violence, sex, we listen to the language
and we look at theme, incest or drug use, but smoking
is not one of the criteria for the ratings. Cigarettes
are legal so how could you have it affect the rating
of a picture."
Like the
tobacco industry's now-defunct political arm, the Tobacco
Institute, the MPAA is a political organization devoted
to protecting the financial interests of the movie industry
and avoiding government regulation.
Under
Valenti, the MPAA stonewalled
the problem of smoking in the movies. (Read what
an entertainment
lawyer said about the MPAA's rhetoric and behavior.)
In 2003, state Attorneys General notified the MPAA
of their concern about smoking in the movies and urged
it to help solve the problem. In 2005 and 2006, increasing
numbers of Attorneys General asked the MPAA to include
anti-smoking PSAs on future tapes and DVDs that portray
tobacco use. The MPAA has yet to return a substantive
answer. (Read
the AGs' latest letter and write
the Attorneys General encouraging them to press this
issue.)
On September 1, 2004, Valenti retired and was replaced
as president of the MPAA by Dan Glickman (Contact
Dan Glickman).
On October 5, 2006, Glickman wrote
the Attorneys General that the MPAA had invited recommendations
from the Harvard School of Public Health and would work
to "gain consensus" among its member studiios
to implement them.
On February 23, 2007, consistent
with Smoke Free Movies' recommended solution,
Harvard recommended
that the MPAA "take substantive and effective action
to eliminate the depiction of tobacco smoking from films
accessible to children and youths..."
On
May 1, 2007, thirty-one AGs followed up with another
letter to the studios containing the strongest language
to date:
[E]ach
time a member of the industry releases another movie
that depicts smoking, it does so with the full knowledge
of the harm it will bring to children who watch it...
[E]liminate
the depiction of tobacco smoking from films accessible
to children and youth. There is simply no justification
for further delay.
On
May
10, 2007, with much fanfare, the MPAA announced
that it will “consider” tobacco imagery
in the ratings starting immediately. However, rathen
than adopting Smoke Free Movies' simple plan to rate
new smoking movies "R" (with
two well-defined exceptions), the
MPAA required that smoking be "pervasive,"
"glamorized," and without any "historic
or mitigating context." These loopholes allow the
MPAA to do anything it wants.
Leading
health organizations quickly denounced the MPAA’s
placebo policy. They pledge to keep pressing for the
“R” rating and other measures that can substantially
and permanently reduce adolescent exposure. (The statements
from the American
Medical Association, American
Heart Association, American
Legacy Foundation, and Campaign
for Tobacco Free Kids were typical.)
On
June 5, Vermont Attorney General William H. Sorrell,
a leader among the AG's pressuring MPAA, wrote
the MPAA, saying that they were "witholding judgement"
on the effectiveness of the MPAA plan in actually reducing
adolescents' exposure to smoking in the movies and requesting
specific reports to demand (politely) accountability.
What
happened? The major studios that make up the
MPAA failed to reach consensus on the recommendations
that the MPAA had itself invited. Unable to respond
to the substance of the AGs’ letter, it has tried
PR razzle-dazzle instead, recycling old and debunked
ideas.
It is now clear that the studios are not yet willing,
for whatever reason, to break themselves free from Hollywood’s
history of collaboration
with the tobacco industry.
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