Disney Snuffs Out Smoking

[Gothampc]

Posted: 7/25/07 at 3:15pm

I'm not a fan of smokers or smoking, but I think banning it from movies is stupid.

I grew up watching "I Love Lucy" smoke and yet I personally don't smoke. When I was a kid I had a babysitter who smoked (think an older version of Patti or Selma on The Simpsons). I think she is the reason I don't smoke.

"Walt Disney on Wednesday became the first Hollywood studio to phase out cigarette smoking in its films, saying smoking scenes in future Disney-branded movies would be “non-existent”.


Link

[Elphaba]

Posted: 7/25/07 at 3:21pm

I am extremely anti-smoking, but I agree with you.

Can you imagine a remake of say Casablanca, The Women, etc without smoking. Smoking was such a (albeit bad) part of American life that to take it out makes no sense.

It makes no sense to me.

[Pippin]

Posted: 7/25/07 at 3:24pm

It's like they've gone back about 60 decades when they had a code of what could and couldn't be in films. stupid idea.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 7/25/07 at 3:27pm

What's really stupid is to put an "R" rating on a film just because someone smokes. How are we supposed to tell the difference between a smoking "R" and a soft porn "R"?

[Mother's Younger Brother]

Posted: 7/25/07 at 3:30pm

Nobody is saying that smoking is being "taken out" of existing films -- just that it won't be included in new ones. It's about changing social attitudes towards smoking. The less kids see it -- anywhere -- the less acceptible it will become.

[Elphaba]

Posted: 7/25/07 at 3:30pm

and as much damage as alcohol can do, it just seems silly that they can show people getting drunk, but not people smoking?

[Mother's Younger Brother]

Posted: 7/25/07 at 3:32pm

Smoking and secondhand smoke kill FAR more people each year than alcohol.

[JerseyGirl2]

Posted: 7/25/07 at 3:33pm

I remember when they did the same with seatbelts in the 80s. They announced that they would never show a character on television getting in a car without fastening his or her seatbelt.

As for smoking... Cruella DeVil? Captain Hook? The stoned caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland?? They are all smokers!

[DG]

Posted: 7/25/07 at 3:34pm

As I understand it, it's directed primarily at movies that actually carry the Disney brand - the kid and family fair. The ones under their other brands will attempt to be non-smoking, but aren't so tightly constrained. At it would be those under which an adult period piece would appear, thereby allowing for the historically accurate portrayal of smoking.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 7/25/07 at 3:34pm

"The less kids see it -- anywhere -- the less acceptible it will become."

I disagree with that. Seeing it less may make it more enticing, ie "forbidden fruit".

[madbrian]

Posted: 7/25/07 at 3:36pm

"The less kids see it -- anywhere -- the less acceptible it will become."

I completely disagree. However, aside from that, the purpose of art in general, and movies in particular, isn't to guide and nurture children. How can a writer or director tell his/her story if there are restrictions about a legal, commonplace occurrence like someone smoking?

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 7/25/07 at 3:36pm

This is a self imposed ban not a governmental decree. Good for them, I say.

[Mother's Younger Brother]

Posted: 7/25/07 at 3:37pm

You're not from California, are you. I work in the Tobacco Control Program of the Department of Public Health. For 20 years our strategy has been "creating social norm change," NOT solely encouraging smokers to quit.

In that time, California's smoking rates have gone more than any other state, or any other country in the world. The strategy works.

[JohnPopa]

Posted: 7/25/07 at 3:38pm

Seems a silly blanket rule to make: smoking is like any behavior that in fiction can contribute to giving a character a more shading and depth, for better or for worse.

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 7/25/07 at 3:41pm

But John, if necessity is the mother of invention perhaps this will force the writers to be more creative when developing a character and not use the lazy short-hand that smoking = naughty or bad.

[zepka102]

Posted: 7/25/07 at 3:42pm

Is it really going to matter in the end? I mean, are you going to sit there watching a movie and think, "You know what? This character should have a cigarette in their hand right now."

They're doing their part in showing that smoking is dangerous by not including it. That's all.

[JohnPopa]

Posted: 7/25/07 at 3:43pm

I don't think it always means that anyway -- smoking is a vice. Some characters have vices. Again, we'll have characters killing and mutilating one another but we won't show them smoking because we're worried it might send a bad message?

[misschung]

Posted: 7/25/07 at 3:44pm

It's like they've gone back about 60 decades when they had a code of what could and couldn't be in films. stupid idea.

Well, don't they still do that - to a certain extent? They don't say "you can't show this" but if they DO show it, the MPAA can give it a harsher rating and significantly reduce their potential audience.

Aren't most Disney movies targeted towards children and early teens, though? Maybe not all of them, but generally speaking, how much smoking goes on in those films to begin with? If every studio suddenly adopted this, it would be one thing, but I agree that it's a good idea to change kids' perspectives on smoking. And absolutely, the same should be said for getting drunk - which can be infinitely more dangerous than smoking anyway.

This reminds me of that scene in Mrs. Doubtfire when Robin Williams has the fight with his boss about the cartoon bird smoking.

[Mother's Younger Brother]

Posted: 7/25/07 at 3:46pm

Yes, John...movies show killing and mutilating, and they usually get an R rating for it. Smoking kills a lot more people than murderers.

[Pippin]

Posted: 7/25/07 at 3:47pm

yes, but I mean codes like "the gay code" where you couldn't even suggest that a character was a homesexual in films. Now some directors got around it through very subtle shots and what not, but that's the kind of idiotic code that I was referring to.

[StageManager2]

Posted: 7/25/07 at 3:47pm

"Nobody is saying that smoking is being 'taken out' of existing films -- just that it won't be included in new ones."

When MELODY TIME was released on video, Pecos Bill's cigarettes were erased digitally, and the part where he lights one with a lightning bolt was entirely excised.

[Pippin]

Posted: 7/25/07 at 3:49pm

This reminds me of that scene in Mrs. Doubtfire when Robin Williams has the fight with his boss about the cartoon bird smoking.


"(wheeew)....they're biased."
LOVE that scene.

[JohnPopa]

Posted: 7/25/07 at 3:50pm

Smoking has also had generational levels of acceptance and it's very possible for movies to show and address that. Disney's free to not make those movies but, again, as a blanket statement by a studio to make, it seems silly to ban smoking in all movies without even looking at context.

And last I checked a couple dozen Disney villains got waxed without getting an R-rating due to meeting their fate on film.

[SNAFU]

Posted: 7/25/07 at 4:01pm

MYB I am not sure that if you included drunk driving fatalities plus all the health problems attributed to drinking, including throat and mouth cancer,stomach cancer cirrosis of the liver etc that you can say smoking kills far more people each year.

[Kringas]

Posted: 7/25/07 at 4:05pm

Pippin is talking about the Hays Code.
Hays Code