The Anti Smoking PC Police Are At It Again

Now a movie may get a R rating if there is smoking in it

Give me a fricking break. If The Maltese Falcon or Casablanca were rereleased now they would have to get an R. They will not be happy until every movie ever made with smoking in it has all the smoking removed. Blood & guts & disembowelments are fine but whip out a cigarette & you are worse than a mass murderer

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Tell me about it

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X and X: State of the Union were both:
MPAA:
Rated PG-13 for violence, non-stop action sequences, sensuality, drug content and language.

Also: The Fast and Furious Trilogy

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I am a "reformed" smoker, but I even think that is absurd. Just like trying to ban people from smoking in their personal cars, but that is a different point. It's a freakin movie already, ENTERTAINMENT. I'm not saying I support smoking, but giving a movie an R rating because someone is smoking is really absurd, in my opinion.

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This was my point NAMO

I guess it went over your head

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Yeah, that must be it. How many more parts of your body have to be cut out before you stop all your anti-"PC" posing? REMEMBER how much you used to brag about your red meat eating cigar smoking self? Remember when you had an intact colon? There IS a connection.

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There's another part to this sudden MPAA ruling.

Kids (and I mean 10-17 year olds) in the Los Angeles area are suddenly taking up smoking in huge numbers. It's the latest "trend" in middle school out here. And I don't mean underprivileged "hoodlums." I mean across the board... Private Schools to Special Ed.

The kids are smoking again.

Why?

We've told them NOT TO SMOKE a little too often. We've hammered it into their heads that it's wrong... they'll die... We've scared them as much as possible with news reports, literature in schools and Public Service Announcements.

We've told them their planet is dying... the economy sucks, and as crappy as our quality of life as become of the past half century... we've let them know it's GETTING WORSE. Global Warming will kill every last one of us sooner than we think.

We went TOO FAR, and it's backfiring now. Kids across L.A. are raising up their middle fingers in unison and boldly grabbing a pack of Marlboro's and lighting up.

It's the latest rebellion.

You'll see it soon. If history repeats itself (as it usually does)... kids across America will be emulating our tykes in L.A. within a year or two.

It will be a nationwide epidemic. And our lovely MPAA is doing whatever they can to stop this now. Instead of calmly talking to our kids and telling them that it's their choice, but we think it's a bad idea that they smoke because they'll only be hurting themselves. We've gone into OVERKILL. We've used the same alarmist tactics that our evening news reports use. We've showed them "furrowed brows" and scared faces with desperate concern. We've made heartfelt pleas (while calling our offices on our cell phones and checking our emails), and cried and gnashed our teeth with anxiety and anguish, during our quality time with our kids.

It's our fault as a society here in Sunny Cal. And we're now going to pay the price as we watch our youth light up in unison.

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"Instead of calmly talking to our kids and telling them that it's their choice, but we think it's a bad idea that they smoke because they'll only be hurting themselves"

sorry, I disagree......I'm sorry but going to little Johnny or Jennie and saying "now little Johnny and Jennie,you go ahead and smoke if you want to, but really we'd like you not to, as it may KILL you."

Oh yeah, that's really going to work......it didn't work in the past, it won't now.

Take the little darlings on a field trip to a cancer ward, show them the results of smoking, show them blackened lungs.....
never, EVER coddle a kid about smoking, it does not work.

(best, I love ya, but really I have to disagree)

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Fear is not a long-term public health strategy.

And b12b, the story you describe is the same as when 1950s teens emulated James Dean (where?) in the movies for the same type of rebeliion.

Their parents learned to smoke (where?) in movies, which told them it was glamorous, not rebellious.

Mr Roxy just wants the same for future generations. Is that so wrong?

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Elphaba, I love ya too... but your theoretical approach has backfired now. Taking the kids to the cancer ward (either literally or "virtually") only resulted in a raised middle finger, so it seems.

I'm not saying they're bright, at all. But that's what is happening right now throughout L.A. Get ready for it.

FACT: Hammering the message home didn't work. And we're now seeing the fruits of our labor in the latest erupting trend.

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I suppose that for the ban to make sense they would also have to stop any sceenes with booze, cocaine, other drugs, and pot in them, which they don't seem to be doing, so perhaps it is a bit extreme.

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as far as the fear mongering goes, i see at least one ad a day for www.whudafxup.com's truth campaign. it's marketed straight to them damn whippersnappers who's buying up all papa's kensingtons!

between those and the freakin' guy with the buzzer voice who's sad because he can't swim anymore and the ads showing diseased body parts it's impossible for me here in queens to watch broadcast television for more than an hour or so without seeing one of the above ads.

i'm leery of the case being made for movies and behavior being a cause and effect relationship. once that's established in this case the same use of that is available to other issues. i see it as a pandora's box that offers the potential for a chilling effect on freedom of expression.

if people agree that smoking in movies causes smoking in life, then what else do the movies do that one group or another doesn't want people to do? who'll have the power to enforce those kinds of "suggestions"?

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I'm not saying it's extreme (in general) to tell them not to smoke... And I wholeheartedly agree with how damaging it is to our society at large (not just the individual who puffs away in a cloud of self-satisfaction).

I used to be a pack a day smoker for 11 years. I quit cold turkey 14 years ago(!). It was my choice. Not because I was told I HAD TO OR I WAS GOING TO DIE.

Everyone in our society knows it's bad. There is NO SHOCK in hearing this news. They've all been told many times. So why do people smoke in this day and age?

Rebellion. They do it as a form of saying, "f*ck you," as well as a form of "I'll show you. I can do it and not ever get addicted. I won't die, because I'm 16 now! I'm gonna live forever! Like FAME!"

They're wrong.

They also do it as an expression of saying they don't give a sh*t about themselves or their health. They don't care if they die from it. That's the arrogance of youth. They aren't remotely feeling mortal yet. That won't hit them for another 15-20 years or so... before they get their first "reality jolt" of mortality. The day they wake up and realize that they won't live forever (like FAME!).

For now, it's a raised middle finger... and a long trendy drag on their filtered fag.

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