The Debate: Should smoking in movies be 18-rated?

Mar 25 2008 by Liza Williams, Liverpool Daily Post

Should under-18s be banned from films that include smoking scenes? Liza Williams reports

CAMPAIGNERS in Liverpool last week called for an 18 rating to be given to all films featuring smoking. SmokeFree Liverpool say the move is needed to protect young people, and the body is now considering using licensing laws to bring in stricter ratings for local screenings.

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) has rejected the possibility of a nationwide implementation and called the idea of a blanket adult certificate for all smoking scenes "heavy handed".

The announcement follows the SmokeFree Movies conference in Liverpool, where experts and young people from Britain and the USA debated the influence of smoking within the media.

SmokeFree Liverpool claims over half of all young people who started smoking last year in the city – around 1,650 – did so as a direct result of seeing smoking on the big screen.

But the BBFC says the move is unnecessary as adequate measures already exist to protect young people, and added numbers of smoking scenes have declined in recent years.

Spokeswoman Sue Clarke said: "We do have policy as far as smoking is concerned, and if we see smoking in films which actively promote smoking to young people then yes, of course, we would take action against then, giving them a higher rating if necessary."

This proposal by SmokeFree Liverpool is the latest in a long line of campaigns to reduce smoking rates in the city which are amongst the highest in the UK, and to lower cases of lung cancer and other smoking related diseases.

This week, we ask: Should films featuring smoking automatically be given an 18 rating?

lizawilliams@dailypost.co.uk

YES: The Case For - This would be a simple step to save young lives

by Andy Hull, Chair of Smokefree Liverpool

YES, yes, 1,650 times yes . . . That’s the number of young Liverpudlians we reckon are currently smoking as a direct result of seeing "tobacco images" on screen.

Given that up to half of that number will die prematurely through their addiction to tobacco, that means around 800 young people in our city are going to have their lives cut short – simply because of the influence of the movies.

That is why we – and the World Health Organisation, doctors in this country, campaigners in America, and young people such as Liverpool’s D-MYST group – believe that taking smoking out of movies seen by under-18s is one of the simplest and most effective public health measures we could take. The science on this issue is clear. Exposure to smoking in movies is the single most powerful pro-tobacco influence on young people today, accounting for the recruitment of half of all new 11 to 17-year-old smokers.

This astonishing statistic has been established through extensive research, particularly in America, New Zealand and Germany. We are now carrying out research in this country, but the international experts we have consulted have no reason to doubt that the pattern elsewhere will be repeated here.

And it is still going on. It has been suggested that the number of "tobacco impressions" in films has dropped, as movies reflect a changing social scene. Yet 1,196,600,000 "tobacco impressions" this fig is ok - due to millions who see each film were delivered to UK cinema audiences by a sample of 48 top box office films in 2006. Of those 48 films, 46 received a youth rating in the UK (15 or below).

Smoking, therefore, is still regularly depicted in large numbers of movies which can be seen by young people.

This is not an artistic requirement. With very few exceptions, smoking is irrelevant to the content of the movie. Does anyone ever come out of a cinema and say "there was some really nice smoking in that film"or "I wish there’d been more smoking"?

The obvious reason for the images still to be seen in movies is that the tobacco industry and the film industry want them to be there, for whatever motive.

The more on-screen smoking images children see, the more likely they will become smokers. Once they are addicted, they will find it difficult to quit, with the consequent ill-effects on their health and the likelihood of premature death.

We are not talking about airbrushing smoking from old films, but simply asking the British Board of Film Classification to use powers it already has to protect young people in the future. For the vast majority of films, the presence of smoking is irrelevant. Why then leave it in, when young people are such a vulnerable audience?

This campaign is not anti- smoking. It is about people’s health and the way young people are targeted by the tobacco industry and film-makers.

This is isn’t about artistic freedom and censorship. It’ about taking a simple step to save lives.

NO: The Case Against - This is not censorship - it is intimidation and bullying

by Neil Rafferty, spokesman for Forest, the smokers’ rights group

LAST week I watched a film called The Good German. It’s a thriller set in Berlin at the end of World War II, starring George Clooney and Cate Blanchett. It’s a great film, intelligent and well made. It also carries a 15 certificate. This is understandable as it does include one explicit sex scene, a fair bit of harsh, realistic violence and an awful lot of very strong language. And because the film is set in 1945, most of the characters smoke.

It’s adult entertainment, but it’s not exactly The Exorcist. Nevertheless, the cinema experts at SmokeFree Liverpool would give it an 18 certificate, not because of the sex, the violence or the swearing, but because George Clooney is smoking a cigarette.

In this brave new world, what other movies would be restricted to adults only? Casablanca, All About Eve, From Here to Eternity and Bridge on the River Kwai would all have to be shown after the 9pm watershed.

And let’s not forget the original cartoon version of 101 Dalmatians, featuring that nasty tobacco user Cruella de Vil. It all starts to sound just a little bit extreme, doesn’t it?

The anti-smoking fanatics say they want to protect children. Perhaps, but surely there are better ways of doing it than by censoring films and restricting freedom of expression?

For a start, we could have stronger educational programmes for children – and their parents. And we could actually enforce the legal age limit for buying tobacco and punish those shopkeepers who knowingly sell to kids.

SmokeFree Liverpool says there is evidence to suggest that smoking in films makes children want to smoke.

This is just the latest example of the anti-smoking lobby’s history of exaggeration, manipulation and plain old making things up.

What does encourage children to smoke is when the habit is seen as taboo. The more forbidden and wrong it is made to seem, the more likely it is that children, especially teenagers, will be attracted to it.

Instead of this constant hysteria, surely it is better to tell children that while smoking is a serious risk to their health – and expensive – it is also nothing more than a mundane habit.

I’ve seen the anti-smoking extremists up close, so naturally I’m a bit cynical when they say it’s all about "the children".

When a film receives an 18 certificate, it excludes not only youngsters but many adults who don’t like excessive violence and strong language. That’s why film- makers like 15 certificates, because it says, "this is entertainment for grown-ups, but it doesn’t go too far".

The extremists know that by slapping an 18 certificate on smoking scenes, more and more film-makers will just stop showing smoking altogether until cinema will depict a world in which smoking does not exis. This is not just censorship – it is intimidation and bullying.

And, if this was to become a reality, how long before scenes of excessive drinking or consumption of fast food are given the 18 certificate "to protect the children"?

Children do need to be protected, but We have to retain some perspective and some balance, otherwise it’s our freedoms that will go up in smoke.