Six major Hollywood film studios are using their wide global reach for the common good. Sony Pictures, Universal Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, Walt Disney Studios and Twentieth Century Fox joined forces with California health authorities to help teach children the possible risks of smoking. “There is a definite evidence showing kids’ viewing tobacco usage in movies has a definite influence on their behavior,” said Dr. Mark Horton, Director of the California Department of Public Health. All the six studios have agreed to include anti-smoking advertisements in the opening minutes of their new DVDs releases. The ads will be included on DVDs rated G, PG, and PG 13 that has scenes depicting smoking. The anti-smoking commercials were produced by California’s Tobacco Control Program. The first ad, which will be included on the DVD release of Sony Pictures’ blackjack movie 21, is entitled Icon. The ad revolves around the strong contrast between smoking icons and smoking people. It displays images of a cowboy, a hip-hop DJ and a 1920s flapper in contrast with that of a dying man in a wheelchair. "Placing these ads on DVDs will remind viewers that movies are fiction but the damage smoking does is real," said Lisa Paulsen, president of the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF), the leading non-profit org of the industry. EIF brokered the deal between the state of California and the six major Hollywood studios. Concerned citizens have been asking for something like this for the longest time. It’s about time that these studios listened. Last year, Walt Disney made history by being the first major studio to ban smoking scenes. After all Disney is known to be a family-oriented brand. But that doesn’t mean that the buck stops with Disney. According to research, 75 percent of movies rated G, PG and PG-13 has smoking scenes. All these movies combined will be seen by at least 200,000 children in a year, which means 200,000 possible new youth smokers. Films with these ratings can be watched by children, and most of the time they are directed towards that audience. It is only right that we totally ban smoking scenes in these kinds of films. "Putting ads in more movies is a positive step to curb the negative effect that movie smoking has on youth starting to smoke," said Dr. Cheryl G. Healton, President and CEO of the American Legacy Foundation – a national public health foundation dedicated to reducing tobacco use in the U.S. "We believe more can, and must, be done by the industry. The most important way to reduce youth exposure to smoking in movies is take it completely out of youth-rated films.” Let’s hope that this is the first step towards completely eliminating smoking on film. It’s high time that we stop glamorizing smoking and start showing what it really does. But what does the honorable Governator of California have to say about it? Well… "I personally don’t believe that we should erase cigarettes in movies. I don’t believe we should erase it when someone smokes a cigar in movies. I think that we should remind people, and kids, all the time about the dangers of smoking," says Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
