chicago tribune column criticizes

Chicago Tribune Column Criticizes Health Groups' Movie Smoking Demands

A column by Steve Chapman in yesterday's Chicago Tribune takes issue

with the demand of many anti-smoking groups that any movie that

depicts non-historical smoking be automatically given an R rating.

Chapman makes a number of arguments, starting with the contention that

the research linking exposure to smoking in movies with smoking

initiation is perhaps not as strong as anti-smoking groups have made

it out to be. Specifically, Chapman suggests that the observed

relationship between seeing smokers in movies and starting to smoke

may be due to an increased propensity to smoke among the kinds of

youths that tend to view movies that show lots of smoking: "it may be

that teens who are inclined to smoke anyway are also inclined to see

the sort of movies that feature smoking."

Chapman then quotes me, noting my argument that this research cannot

possibly isolate a specific effect of movie smoking, as opposed to

exposure to smoking in a variety of media: "Michael Siegel, a

physician and professor at the Boston University School of Public

Health, believes the studies greatly exaggerate the impact of tobacco

in films. 'It is simply one of a large number of ways in which youths

are exposed to positive images of smoking (which includes

advertisements, television movies, television shows, DVDs, Internet,

music videos and a variety of other sources),' he told me in an e-mail

interview. 'To single out smoking in movies as the cause of youth

smoking initiation for a large percentage of kids is ridiculous.'"

The column then cites my argument that a mandatory R rating for any

smoking in movies could undermine the ratings system and ironically

lead to more exposure to smoking: "Siegel points out that applying R

ratings to films just because they feature full-frontal shots of

cigarettes may backfire. Parents anxious about sex and violence may

stop paying attention to the rating system once it factors in smoking.

So you could end up with more kids seeing films with smoking."

Finally, Chapman makes the interesting point that requiring an R

rating of movies that depict smoking may not be particularly effective

in preventing youth exposure to smoking in movies, since data show

that 84% of kids in grades 5 through 8 (pre-teens and young teenagers)

view R-rated movies. The percentage must be even higher among older

teenagers.

The Rest of the Story

The point this column makes about the extremely high percentage of

adolescents who view R-rated movies is a very important one. Even if

we accept, for the sake of argument, that smoking in movies is

responsible for 38% of youth smoking, as asserted by some anti-smoking

researchers, it is not necessarily the case that requiring an R rating

for movies that depict smoking would lead to any substantial reduction

in youth smoking.

The reason is that the overwhelming majority of adolescents are

exposed to smoking in R-rated movies. It is not clear whether the

anti-smoking groups' proposed policy would actually prevent youths

from being exposed to smoking in movies.

In fact, it is possible that the exposure to smoking in movies might

not be reduced substantially. First of all, smoking depictions would

tend to be heavily concentrated among R-rated movies. Movies that

previously might have limited smoking would no longer have any

incentive to do so. Since a single smoking depiction would generate an

R rating anyway, the film might as well depict as much smoking as

desired. Thus, the R-rated films that youths see anyway could well be

packed with smoking depictions.

Second, the rating of any film with any smoking depiction as an

R-rated film could well undermine the ratings system. Parents might

become more lax about their children viewing R-rated films. Or it

might give kids an excuse to convince their parents to let them watch

such movies ("Awe mom. It's only rated R because one of the characters

lights up a cigarette once.")

Third, youths would continue to see smoking in many other media,

including advertisements, television movies, television shows, DVDs,

the internet, music videos and a variety of other sources.

Things are a lot more complex than the anti-smoking groups are making

them out to be. The world is not black and white. It is not as simple

as concluding that exposure to smoking in non-R rated movies is the