BUTT OUT
Smoke Free Movies Is Missing The Big Picture
AVATAR IS BREAKING BOX OFFICE RECORDS and receiving critical acclaim as it cleans in the early awards season. But with success comes controversy. While many people are debating the movie's "real" message -- is it racist? against religion? pro-socialist? -- the anti-smoking lobby fumes about Sigourney Weaver's character's nasty little habit.
Contending that onscreen smoking negatively influences children, the organization Smoke Free Movies bought two full-page ads in Variety and The Hollywood Reporter excoriating the industry for giving the tobacco industry free advertising in James Cameron's blockbuster.
The group contends on its website that that "390,000 kids recruited to smoke each year by the smoking they see on screen are worth $4 billion in lifetime sales to the tobacco companies."
While I'm not a smoker and am no fan of the habit, my personal opinion is smoking can serve a very direct purpose in a movie.
What if smoking is crucial to a story's character? What if the cancer sticks are integral to a film's period?
For instance, the movie Good Night and Good Luck accurately depicts the pervasiveness of smoking during the 50s. The film recounts how Senator Joe McCarthy assailed journalist Edward R. Murrow for discrediting McCarthy's communist scare tactics. Would we really want to ban young adults from seeing this cautionary tale because the hero smokes cigarettes? That would be ludicrous.
Smoking can also be used to tell the audience about a character where words would seem clunky and expositional. Writers are constantly admonished to "to show, not tell" a story. By simply lighting up a cigarette, a writer can illuminate a character’s state of mind: It can reveal stress, worry, anxiety. And how many cinematic post-coital scenes would be anticlimactic without the cigarette?
Smoking itself may be a reprehensible habit. But making every bad habit punishable would be exhausting. There are already laws in place to keep children from buying cigarettes until they're 18. Until then, it should be the parents’ responsibility to speak to their children about the harms of smoking, not Hollywood's.
Calhoun Kersten is a Cincinnati, Ohio, native who now calls Chicago home. A recent graduate of Columbia College, he blogs at Confessions Of A Self-Proclaimed Megalomaniac.
Comments
I think the author is making a grave misstep in suggesting that smoking is necessary for establishing 'reality' in film.
Consider the case of Cate Blanchett. She portrayed one of Hollywood's most talented avid smoker, Kate Hepburn, without lighting up once in The Aviator. Did that take away from the film's believability, or from her portrayal of this well-known person? Maybe we should let her Oscar answer that question.
The smoke free movie campaign isn't looking to ban smoking outright. By pushing for an R-rating for excessive smoking scenes (not unlike excessive violence, swearing, or other substance abuse), it will encourage filmmakers to think twice about what they include in their film. So many work so hard to keep their ratings as low as possible.
Posted by: Kate | February 4, 2010 03:35 PM
You obviously know nothing of the studies done on this subject.
And please note that no similar cry was raised for "Good Night."
As for Avatar, seeing someone burning up the oxygen and spreading tars and nicotine over sensitive electronic equipment in a tightly controlled environment can't help but take the viewer OUT of the world Cameron's trying to create.
Cameron has said he wanted to show she didn't care for her human body, only her avatar. THEN WHY'S SHE SO BUFF AT 60?? It takes serious dedication to maintain that Weaver bod.
If he'd wanted to make that point, Grace Augustine should have been fat and slovenly.
Plus, how "realistic" is it that she's the _only_ one on Pandora who smokes? Not even the military.
Introducing smoking into this move was wrong 20 ways from Sunday.
Posted by: Gene | January 28, 2010 01:08 AM