Extreme? Perhaps not.
Over at Better Health, Jonathan Foulds at first dismisses the somewhat radical suggestion that all movies that include smoking scenes should be slapped with an R-rating.
But after thinking about it, he realizes it’s not as extreme as it appears.
He cites the work of anti-smoking crusader Stan Glantz, who reasons that, “movies made to be viewed by kids do not need to include smoking, and therefore should be given an R rating if they do, just as they are if they depict illicit drug use. . . . Of course the movie industry is very clear that a large part of its audience is kids and particularly teens. The net effect of the rating changes Professor Glantz is recommending would be that gratuitous smoking will be taken out of many movies and particularly those aimed at kids.”
Children are influenced by what they see in the movies. If we can prevent a few kids from taking up smoking by reducing the number of smoking scenes in movies and on television, I’m all for it.
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What if smoking is depicted in an unfavorable light? For example, Star Trek Deep Space Nine “Little Green Men” has some Ferengi (non-humans) time traveling to Earth in 1949, ending up at a military base at Roswell, NM. In front of the chain smoking servicemen observing them, one of them says “What’s that disgusting smell?”. Another says “Tobacco, a deadly poison.” “Why do they use it?” “It’s also highly addictive.”
I would prefer a brief narration of character’s futures as in Biloxi Blues – remember the young guy gulping junk food and Jerome telling that this person now has a wide array of GI problems and is surviving on a strict diet.
Why stop there? You should put an R-rating on any movie with gratuitous fast food eating. You don’t want children emulating that behavior, do you?
Overeating = smoking.
wut?
Scenes involving drugs and sex are often relegated to R-rated movies, but I don’t see that stopping young people from taking part in either. There are definitely better ways to teach kids that smoking is bad.
Oh yeah, put and “R” rating on everything any pressure group finds objectionable. A list off of the top of my head: swearing, smoking, drinking, fornicating, abortion, belief in God, Allah, Jehovah, Yahweh, G-d, non-belief in the same, dancing, eating meat, not eating meat, not exercising, denigrating big business, celebrating big business, celebrating communism, socialism, capitalism, depicting mental illness, denying mental illness exists, making fun of the developmentally delayed, celebrating man’s depravity, celebrating man’s heroism, stories about race, stories that deny racism exists, celebrating America, castigating America. I could go on until there would be no possible way to tell a story that is worth anything. Anything that depicts a conflict has a small seed of a potential story, getting rid of everything people object to in this “culture”, or rather limiting certain people’s exposure to these things, is one more step towards the idea that the American people are too stupid to make choices on their own. That somehow, someone needs to protect the vulnerable from seeing things or hearing things that may make that thing seem desirable. Society is one of those anti-concepts that mean just what the bigger pressure group says it means. But I am tired of living in a country where the world is made so safe for “the children”, that it becomes impossible to be expected to be treated like an adult. To show you how stupid this idea is, here is my child safe form of letter protesting this idea:
Just stop it, or I am going to tell on you guys.
Stupid isn’t it.
A noble idea, perhaps, but where do you draw the line? R ratings for violence (even cartoons?), car chases, alcohol consumption, fast food consumption, etc.
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