Some parents preview movies to gauge the age appropriateness of the content for their children. They scour ratings and review information for feedback on coarse language, sexual content, and/or violence. But what about smoking or "tobacco incidents?"
Friday, July 15, 2011, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), published an article, Smoking in Top-Grossing Movies — United States, 2010, that reports a decline in "the number of onscreen tobacco incidents in youth-rated (G, PG, or PG-13) movies," comparing 2010 to 2005.
Why is Smoking in Movies a Big Deal for Kids?
As the CDC pointed out, there are lots of trends in tobacco use tied to youth. They cited National Cancer Institute studies indicating youth smoking may be associated with seeing it in movies. Other government agencies such as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services also expressed strategies to reduce tobacco use in movies in 2010. Smoking has been accepted as a health risk.
If smoking and related risks concern you as a parent, the CDC report is worth noting.
I Spy Tobacco
The CDC shared the method used by the Thumbs Up! Thumbs Down! project (TUTD) to count the tobacco incidents onscreen. Monitors are hired and trained to view movies in the top-grossing movies during specific time periods. TUTD has standard definitions for tobacco incidents, including appearances of tobacco products on screen and actors using them.
Some Statistics
The CDC report and TUTD results give parents something to chew on.
- In the movies tracked by TUTD, there were over 2000 tobacco incidents observed in 2005 compared to 595 in 2010 in youth-rated movies.
- For frequency within a movie, the average number of tobacco "incidents per youth-rated moved decreased" from just over 20 in 2005 down to just over 6 in 2010.
- In 2010, 54.7% of 137 top-grossing movies had no tobacco incidents while only 33.3% successfully omitted them in 2005.
Smoking in G-rated Movies?
As a child of the 1960s, I remember all kinds of smoking onscreen by actors and cartoon characters, even ads for candy cigarettes.
Now as a possibly jaded adult, I can not recall noticing smoking in any recent kid-friendly movies; however, the TUTD statistics indicate that 61 of 88 youth-rated (G, PG, PG-13) movies in 2010 had no tobacco incidents. Surprisingly, that would indicate that about 30% of those top-grossing kid-friendly movies did include tobacco incidents onscreen.
Motion Picture Company Smoking Policies
CDC notes another trend change between 2005 and 2010. According to them, half of the six members of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) with policies to reduce tobacco incidents for youth-rated movies saw a huge decrease in their onscreen incidents, i.e., from an average of 23.1% per movie to an average of 1.0%. [Note: a recent search on the www.mpaa.org website for "tobacco" returned no results.] An example of a tobacco policy for Universal Pictures is available online.
CDC advises that independent companies and non-policy members of the MPAA appeared to be trying to reduce incidents but their numbers are still ten times higher than those with anti-tobacco incident type policies.
Year Over Year
Looking over the CDC chart for the "number of tobacco incidents in top-grossing movies, by movie rating-United States, 1991-2010," I was struck by the fluctuations in the numbers year over year. The CDC report focuses positively on the decreases between 2005 and 2010; however, their overall chart shows lots of upward and downward trends over the past twenty or so years.
Just by visual inspection of their chart, I noted that after a relatively high number of tobacco incidents were reported for G or PG movies back in 1996. While the counts over the next few years appeared to mostly decline, there was a notable resurgence in 2005; actually 2005 was the highest year charted for G, PG, PG-13, and R-rated movies between 1991 and 2010, despite a lull in the few years prior.
Remembering 2005
Maybe this time the lower count of tobacco incidents will continue. Still, makes me wonder what was happening in 2005 to possibly drive those higher numbers? Where were you when tobacco incidents in top-grossing movies surged the last time?
A few factoids from InfoPlease on the year 2005 to jog our memories:
- Pope Paul II died;
- Tony Blair won his unprecedented third term as a Labour Party prime minister;
- Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor announced her upcoming retirement;
- New England defeated Philadelphia in the Super Bowl;
- Science fiction and fantasy dominated the box office, with Star Wars Episode III-Revenge of the Sith; The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire; and The War of the Worlds taking the top four spots on the list of highest-grossing films; Sith took in more than $380 million;
- Other movies (not necessarily top-grossing) that year included: Brokeback Mountain, Charlie the Chocolate Factory, Good Night and Good Luck, Madagascar, The Squid and the Whale, and Walk the Line.
Let's also note that more people had jobs in the U.S. in 2005 with the unemployment rate sitting at about 5% compared to nearly 10% unemployment in 2010 per the Department of Labor and Statistics.
Maybe the tobacco and movie industry figured there were more dollars to buy cigarettes in 2005.
Bottom Line
CDC also dug around in the state tobacco-control programs for 2011. They found that the 15 states who offered incentives to attract those 2010 top-grossing tobacco-toting movies spent more on attracting them in 2010 ($288 million) than on their budgets for tobacco control programs in 2011 ($280 million). The public might wonder if someone appears to be smoking out of both sides of their mouths.
The CDC report expresses hope that there is some correlation to buoy TUTD's efforts to nix tobacco incidents in movies, e.g., their CDC 2011 report also cited a decrease in cigarette use among middle school and high school students.
Anti-cancer activists are likely happy to see CDC's report. And parents might want to add smoking awareness to their movie previews.
Disclaimer: The information and links contained in this article are for educational purposes only and should not be used for diagnosis or to guide treatment without the opinion of a health professional. Any reader who is concerned about his or her health should contact a licensed medical doctor for advice.This is an editorial review only. Readers should refer to original cited sources to ensure accuracy and for any interpretation of source material.
Additional article by Melanie Hundley related to smoking: New Research: Is Smoking Harmful to Unborn Baby Kidneys?
Sources
- Breathe California. Thumbs Up! Thumbs Down! Retrieved July 18, 2011, from organization website.
- Bureau of Labor and Statistics. (2011, February 25). Regional and state unemployment. Economic News Release. Retrieved July 18, 2011, from government website.
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2011, July 15). Smoking in top grossing movings - United States 2010. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Retrieved July 16, 2011, from CDC government website.
- Education Network. (2011). InfoPlease. Retrieved July 18, 2011, from corporate website.
- NBC Universal Feedback and Universal.com. (2007). Policy on Tobacco Depictions in Films. Retrieved July 18, 2011, from corporate website.
