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A Ban On Smoking In Movies Clears The Air?
Marlene Dietrich smoked like the Twin Towers on 9/12 … but did that influence the young people of her generation to pick up the habit?
Many people feel that it has an effect, including those who run Disney and Universal Studios. Recently these studios and the Motion Picture Association of America made headlines with their announcement to ban smoking from their films.
Now the issue has been debated on Attack of the Show:
CHUD columnist Davin Faraci - on whom I have a non-sexual crush - makes a great argument against a ban on smoking, yet the statistics don’t lie.
For myself, I just don’t get it - smoking is a situational compulsion, and should be treated as such in movies. If it makes sense for a character to smoke in a film, then they should. In the forties, everyone smoked in movies because it was believed to make the characters seem more mature and respectable - however, time and Chris have shown that such a conception is simply not true.
I reject such a ban because demanding the removal of smoking restrains artistic freedom and expression. The world in general - and the United States in particular - has become such a Puritanical place, filled with opinionated people in positions of power who are ready to take away the rights and freedoms of others in order to have their own set of beliefs satisfied. Pretty scary stuff, kids.
So … What do you think? Should there be a ban on smoking in movies?
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2 Responses to “A Ban On Smoking In Movies Clears The Air?”
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No. It shouldn’t be banned. It shouldn’t even get a movie an R rating. It’s a freedom of choice to smoke and an artistic freedom to put it in your movie.
They’re movies that get a PG 13 rating that have very sexual situations and some nudity. Plus the cussing in movies is fucking out of hand. Yet this is not a problem.
If you’re a parent and don’t want your kids to smoke then talk to them about it, don’t expect Hollywood to have to parent your kids.
Soon, we will have no rights left.
This is an absolute joke. Faraci is right, if it makes sense for it to be in a movie, it should, and it should have no bearing on the rating of the movie.
I agree Eric, with all of the other “offensive” items found in movies with PG-13 ratings, smoking shouldnt be such a focal point. Of course, the U.S. rating system is pretty idiotic anyway.