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Smoking
and Movies Shareholder Outreach Network
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Frequent
Questions
“What’s this all about?
Are you the morality police?”
It’s about science and human health, not morality.
It’s about educating families and investors about new scientific
evidence linking viewing of movies with tobacco to smoking initiation by
teenagers. This allows
parents to decide what, if any, action to take to protect their children.
The research has only a circulated for a little more than a year and many
people still aren’t yet aware of it.
We’re also about protecting teenagers, especially
those not old enough to make critical, independent judgments. They are
vulnerable to conscious and subconscious manipulation as they view movie
stars they idolize and whose behavior they often seek to emulate.
The most effective way to
reduce exposure is to rid future G, PG and PG-13 rated movies of smoking
and other tobacco promotions — using the existing voluntary age
classification system. An R rating for movies with smoking creates a
strong economic disincentive against including tobacco in future films
that would otherwise be rated G, PG or PG-13. That’s because R-rated
films sell half as many tickets. Faced with an R rating, the producers
would probably just as soon leave the tobacco out as they now leave out
the “F” word to avoid triggering an R. The result will be more smoke
free youth-rated movies.
Ultimately it’s about educating parents and providing them with
sufficient information to help make smart choices for their children.
“Aren’t you going after the wrong people? You should focus on
directors, screenwriters, actors and theater owners.”
The fact is that the
studios control what goes on screen. Except for the handful of directors
and actors with their own production companies — but who still depend on
the studios for financing, promotion and distribution — Hollywood talent
performs work-for-hire with little to no profit participation or rights in
the finished project.
Studio involvement in
casting, rewrites and editing is routine (such as monitoring use of
offensive language). Directors will remain absolutely free to include
smoking in any movie he or she wants. The movie will simply be rated
appropriately.
“Aren’t you advocating a form of censorship?”
No. We are not asking
anyone to specifically alter content.
As noted above, studios routinely “censor” themselves by
limiting offensive language, explicit sexuality and excessive violence to
avoid an R rating.
We are asking studios to
refrain from showing specific tobacco brands in films but that is akin to
asking them to not turn the movie into a commercial.
And if it is a form of censorship, perhaps it’s a
blow for creativity. David O. Russell, director of “Three Kings,” has
commented, "I've just always
found smoking boring, and an old cheap way to achieve some aura for a
character that can be achieved in fifty other ways most of the time."
We couldn’t agree more.
“What about just adding tobacco to the list of items rated PG-13?”
PG-13 won’t halt a
single teen from seeing a movie, whereas the R-rating stops about half.
PG-13 won’t in the least affect the most vulnerable age group of 13-17.
Nor would it create any economic disincentive to smoking on screen.
“Smoking is justified as a character expression or sign of the times,
a reflection of reality.”
Empirical evidence shows
that this statement is simply not correct. Smoking in the real world has
fallen by half since 1950, yet the amount of smoking in movies registered
an 80% increase in the share of estimated tobacco impressions delivered to
theater audiences by youth-rated as opposed to R-rated movies between 1999
and 2003 (UCSF, March 2004). Images
of smoking in the movies today look more like cigarette advertising than
reality.
Frankly, nobody misses
smoking when it’s not there, but all too many kids notice when it is.
Research also shows it doesn’t matter if the “good guy” or “bad
guy” smokes. Positive or negative, on-screen portrayals of smoking echo
tobacco-marketing messages that range from “join the in-group” to
“you’re a rebel.”
“Would you
allow any exceptions to the R rating for movies with smoking?”
Yes, two exceptions.
First, the “Winston Churchill” exception — if a real historical
character smoked, then there’s no problem portraying that on screen. The
second exception is if a movie seeks to realistically depict the suffering
and impact on human health of tobacco-related illness. But these are
rarely depicted; the standard depiction is that smoking is glamorous and
cool.
“What are the relevant concerns for investors?”
First, a big part of investing is controlling risk.
For many years, big tobacco eluded legal prosecution for addicting
people to tobacco. Then the
dam broke. It’s not clear what risks studio might have as credible
scientific evidence piles up linking movies to initiation of smoking.
A prudent investor should engage management to look into the matter
and control any potential risks. For instance, why would Walt Disney Co.
want to jeopardize decades of profits from family-friendly movies by being
associated with hooking kids on cigarettes?
Second, many large pension funds and socially
screened funds thought they had dealt with the tobacco issue years ago by
excluding the stocks of cigarette manufacturers.
Not so fast. Now they need to face up to the reality that smoking
in movies hooks more kids on tobacco than direct advertising. The evidence
would seem to suggest that holding these media companies could violate
their tobacco screens. A good
first step is engagement with management to try to resolve the problem.
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