Time to get tough on smoking in movies

It is self-evident that society should not do things to encourage young people to take up self-destructive behaviour. So it is worth questioning why Hollywood movies (including many honoured last Sunday at the Academy Awards) should be glamorizing the dirty, nasty and disease-inducing habit that is cigarette smoking.

The B.C. Lung Association counted up 13 Oscar-nominated films this year that featured movie stars smoking.

Among them Carol, in which Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara gratuitously smoke cigarettes as they flirt during the earliest stage of their courtship. Or the movie 45 Years, in which Tom Courtenay opts to renew his smoking habit upon learning the body of his long-dead one-time lover has been discovered. Or Bridge of Spies, where Mark Rylance, playing a Russian spy, smokes for no apparent reason.

Smoking is seldom central to any storyline. Most often it is used to create a mood, perhaps hearkening back to a different era in period pieces. But almost always, it is extraneous, and despicable in view of how influential big-screen movies can be in influencing young people who may find smoking depictions cool or glamorous.

Indeed, the World Health Organization in early February stated that onscreen smoking prompts more than a third of young people who smoke to do so.

And, back in 2012, the U.S. Surgeon General issued a directive, confirming “a causal relationship between depictions of smoking in the movies and the initiation of smoking among young people.”

The simple truth is, young people who view a lot of smoking in the movies or whose favourite movie stars smoke are themselves more likely to become smokers.

The lung association, appropriately, is calling for tougher movie-rating restrictions, as in the U.S. where movies that feature smoking tend to be classified as adult-rated. B.C. is far more lax on this front, the association says.

At last Sunday’s Oscars, for example, all nominees for best and supporting actors with smoking roles had appeared in films rated in B.C. as appropriate for youth audiences. By contrast, only one of the smoker-nominees had appeared in an American youth-rated film.

A 2015 Canadian Cancer Society report on smoking patterns in Canada reveals nine per cent of B.C. residents aged 15 to 19 smoke, while 12 per cent smoke in the 20-to-24 age group.

While these numbers have been declining, even one smoker is too many when statistics on heart and lung disease are considered.

The lung association has the right idea. Restricting who can see a movie threatens profit, which translates into a message Hollywood can clearly understand.

Indeed, the World Health Organization in early February stated that on screen smoking prompts more than a third of young people who smoke to do so.