On stars smoking in movies: among the most effective promoters of smoking among teenagers

Prof. Ben Ami Sela from Sheba Hospital and Tel Aviv University explains the social connection of smoking and suggests treating it 

 By: Prof. Ben-Ami Sela *
 The mass of smokers in the Western world continues to stagger stubbornly around 30-35%, that is, about a third of those over the age of 15 in Western countries smoke. The percentage of smokers in Asia is even higher, when in China, for example, about 60% of men smoke, and my eyes are not at all narrow in the Chinese because of this. And although it sometimes seems that the Sisyphean effort to convince smokers to give up cigarettes has indeed brought more adults to rehab classes in recent years, or even to try to break away from this evil on their own, the "critical mass" of smokers in the world is not diminishing. This is because we are concerned that there is an increase in smoking among the youth, as a global phenomenon: more boys and girls start smoking already at the age of 10, and the trend of smoking increasing relatively more among girls than among boys is even more noticeable, a kind of affirmative discrimination. And so the fountain of smokers does not tend to dry up, since it is fed by the increasing salivation of young smokers, who in time become old smokers.
The famous Swiss psychiatrist Jean Piaget, who dedicated his life to early childhood education methods, once said that "children's minds are as soft as dough, and the better you knead it educationally, the more the child will develop and become a more mature, better adult." It is true that in the teenage years the young people are exposed to many influences and stimuli, and in some cases the young people tend to behave like adults who serve as role models for them - parents, leaders, and even stars in the field of entertainment and cinema. And it turns out that the latter have a surprisingly large influence on a boy or girl's decision to start smoking.

A study by family doctors and psychologists from New Hampshire and North Carolina on the effect of smoking in movies on teenagers who watch them, was published in 2003 in the Lancet, and its conclusions are not surprising. 3,547 boys and girls aged 10 to 14 were recruited for this study, who declared that they had never smoked before. For the purpose of the study, 50 contemporary films were selected that were ranked as relatively popular films, in which the leading actors are seen smoking as part of the film's plot. After a period of 13-26 months, the researchers were able to locate and ask 2,603 ​​of the young people who started the sample, whether they had started smoking in the periods of time that had passed since the start of the study, and the participants were also asked whether they had indeed watched some of the aforementioned films. It turned out that of those boys and girls who were ranked in the top quartile of exposure and viewing of these films, 17% started smoking (107 of them), while among those who were ranked in the bottom quartile in terms of their exposure to films in which people smoke, only 3% (22 of them) started smoking. Another finding of this study is that the effect of watching movies with smoking scenes is significantly greater in those of the participants in the survey whose parents do not smoke, which emphasizes the solid fact that parents who smoke clearly project onto their children, who will follow in the footsteps of their parents as smokers, a kind of passing the smoking torch from generation to generation. Of course, character and personality factors, their importance is decisive in the judgment of children or girls, whether to start smoking.

In this study, self-measures of the participants in the survey were examined, such as school performance and grade level, sensation seeking, rebelliousness, self-esteem, as well as parents' data such as the degree of encouragement for their children's achievement, The level of education of the parents or the degree of care they show for their children's smoking. And when weighing all the last factors, we still come to the conclusion that the probability of those surveyed who watched more movies with smoking (upper quartile) will start smoking is 2.71 times greater compared to those who watched little of these movies (lower quartile), and it is 4.1 times greater in children whose parents do not smoke. In the cited study, the final conclusion is that 52.2% of the considerations that lead to the initiation of smoking in these boys and girls can be attributed to watching movies with smoking scenes. In the US, approximately 2,050 boys and girls between the ages of 12 and 17 start smoking every day, with 32% of them dying prematurely as a result of being smokers. According to the conclusions of the cited study, smoking in movies is responsible for the fact that every day 1,080 American boys and girls start smoking, and he reveals more in 60% of the movies watched by the surveyed boys were movies defined as "movies For the whole family" with a rating known in the US as G, or PG as well as PG-13. That is why the demand of Stanton Glantz and other leaders of the fight against smoking in the US is so understandable and reasonable, but it is appropriate that films containing smoking scenes be limited to viewing for "adults only" in the rating known as R or Restricted, which are not allowed for those under 17 years of age without parental supervision. If they did, the exposure of children and teenagers to smoking scenes in movies would be reduced by approximately 25%, and savings would be made every day In the US 330 new young smokers. Although the MPAA or Motion Picture Association of America, the political arm of Hollywood, initiated in 1968 the film rating system (Rating) intended to "make it easier for parents to decide which of the films they will allow their children to watch".

In accordance with the tradition that began as mentioned in the late 60s, viewing permission is denied to minors under the age of 17 on the basis of coarse language, violence, sexual content, and scenes of drug taking. Cigarette smoking, which was already defined on August 26, 1996 by the US health authorities as the consumption of an addictive drug, and is apparently the most common drug addiction in the world, killing more than any other drug consumption, was not recognized by the heads of the film industry as worthy of being included in the list of "harmful actions" " that minors should be restricted from watching them. The interdependence between the tobacco industry and the film industry, based as always on Pure economic considerations, seemingly inseparable, literally a "love story" in the style of Hollywood.
Indeed, the big tobacco companies continue their winding path to improve as much as possible the methods of persuasion and seduction of teenagers to join the smoking circle. And if the trend towards a certain decline of smoking in the world was indeed observed by these companies with concern, they increased their influence on the film industry, producers, directors and of course actors, to increase smoking at least in films, which for many viewers are a kind of "spiritual bread". From 1990 to 2002, the smoking scenes in films produced in the USA practically doubled, and the amount of smoking in films returned to its heyday from the 50s, before the health damage caused by smoking began to become clear. The alliance between the tobacco industries and the films has actually existed since the 30s. The tobacco companies They used to reward film companies and stars for years: Philip Morris paid 350 thousand dollars for the Knesset One scene in the movie "License to Kill" in which the movie star Timothy Dalton smokes a cigarette made by Sylvester Stallone to smoke cigarettes made by him in five of his films. These are just two of many examples It was customary for tobacco companies to hand out unlimited free cigarettes to Hollywood film production crews In 500, the president of "Werner Brothers" wrote to the cigarette company RJ Reynolds, in order to report that "all the main characters in the recently released thriller smoke during the movie" and he adds: "A movie is more effective than a radio or television advertisement or than billboards Exposing cigarettes, since the public does not associate the cigarette with a commercial advertiser, but is impressed by the fact that cigarette smoking is popular among movie stars The admired ones who serve as role models for the masses." And according to Piaget's theory, the effect of smoking in movies is effective specifically in children, and indeed a study by Dalton et al. in 1972 that examined children in grades 2002 to 17 in elementary school, who used to regularly watch R-rated TV movies intended for 5-year-olds and older, and found an exact correlation between The degree of watching these shows and the fact that these children later began to smoke or drink alcohol. Most convincingly, it was found that children whose parents were absolutely strict about their children's movie viewing habits and prevented them from being exposed to R movies, their chances of starting to smoke or drink alcoholic beverages were XNUMX times smaller than the chances of frequent viewers of these movies.
In contrast to the reality in which the most smokers in the world are usually members of the underdeveloped countries, or those who are less educated, the poorer, the deprived and the most difficult today in the Western countries, in fact, in the movies the smokers are portrayed as successful with a "high profile": these are usually white men, members of the middle class and above, relatively young, successful in their actions, conquering hearts in the romantic context, and usually hunted on the outside. The number of actors in leading roles such as statesmen, lawyers, and those who are defined as "winners" (winners) due to the fact that they impose their opinion on the characters in the roles of the "vanquished", or those who win the heart of the desired actress in the leading female role, were found smoking in the key scenes 2 times or more than those in the supporting roles, who do not receive the empathy of the audience. In 2005, a survey by Dozier was published in the journal Tobacco Control on the top 88 American films in the financial profit that generated in 2002, and a total of 12.4 billion dollars. Only 37% of the said 88 films did not include a scene that included smoking, we found that in almost 2/3 of these films actors were seen smoking, and in total 453 smoking scenes. In light films defined as comedies and family films, smoking was less common (4.5%) than in action films and drama (7.7%). But perhaps the most fascinating conclusion of the cited study is the illusion that smoking in these films plants in the hearts of the 450 million Americans who watched them that year regarding the consequences of smoking: in over 99% of the smoking scenes in the films reviewed, no possibility was voiced that smoking could be harmful to health. The irony of fate is that in only two cases during the aforementioned 88 films did smoking cause death, but of course there was no connection between these deaths and the diseases that smoking causes: in one case a burning cigarette caused an explosive device to be set off in the "bad guy's" car, and in another case the heat given off by a burning cigarette resulted in an injury The missile is fired on a heat source. These are not the deaths that befall smokers in reality. A survey conducted among 4,919 boys and girls who watched these films revealed that the smoking in the films is just as strong as the influence of parents' or older siblings' smoking in the system of considerations of these boys and girls to start smoking as well.
Teenagers in their early teens tend to imitate and identify more with movie actors who portray characters of successful, confident and authoritative, beautiful and rich, strong and victorious. Some have defined the film industry for generations as an industry of creating illusions by presenting characters, situations and scenarios, the whole purpose of which is to take people out of their everyday grayness for two hours, and expose them to the experiences of actors on the screen. It is easy to understand the immediate effect of these screen heroes on their viewers, adults and even more so - young. When the two revered heroes of cinema for three decades, John Wayne "The Duke" and Gary Cooper, smoked cigarettes during most of the scenes in which they demonstrated strength and control, kindness and wisdom of life, and defeated the "bad guys", millions of viewers recognized smoking as an essential gesture associated with these two. But these two actors were heavy smokers in their private lives as well, and both died of lung cancer. Nat King Cole, the wonderful singer who melted hearts with his velvety voice, and who always smoked in movies and on stage, continued to smoke even when he was not in front of the camera, and died of lung cancer at the age of 45. Sammy Davis Jr., the black singer and entertainer and very popular at the time, continued to smoke all his life on the screen and behind the scenes, but he did not stop when he died at the age of 65 from throat cancer. One of the greatest film actors, Humphrey Bogart, who shook hearts as a tough man who conquered women in his 70 films, always did so with a smoking cigarette. His romantic scene with Ingrid Bergman in the movie "Casablanca" from 1946, burned in the mind for decades as a cinematic classic, when the Swedish actress is under his charms while a cigarette is lit in the corner of his mouth. Did Bogart and his fans know then that he would succumb to lung cancer at the age of 58? And we will not deprive Yul Brynner, the masculine King of Siam in "The King and I", or Pharaoh, the King of Egypt in "The Ten Commandments", or Taras Bulba, the mythological hero, often with a cigarette as a companion, in his films and outside of them, until his death from lung cancer at the age of 63. And who among the film actors of the 70's and 80's represented better on the screen than Steve McQueen the handsome, smiling, sporty man, the race driver and brave and the womanizer, when the cigarette was part of his personality in his films, and he passed away at the age of 50 from lung cancer.
But it turns out that the cigarette was also the property of big movie stars from time immemorial, as part of designing female characters to whom smoking was supposed to add a touch of naturalness and everydayness. Suzanne Hayward, who played dramatic roles for the most part in the middle of the century, and smoked heavily in her roles even outside the studio, died at the age of 55 from lung cancer. Lena Turner, a symbol of desirable femininity in the 50s with her platinum-blonde hair and cool beauty, whose smoking accompanied her in many scenes, died of throat cancer. Other admired screen stars who also smoke in their films, Lee Remick and Melina Mercury, died of lung cancer in the middle of their lives. And we will end the list of actresses who smoke in movies with Gwyneth Paltrow, the actress with noble beauty and a captivating smile, who appeared in 1998 in the modern version of the movie "Great Expectations" based on the book by Charles Dickens. Playing the role of the frail Estella, Paltrow sits in a restaurant scene with the film's male star, Ethan Hook, and smokes Kools cigarettes, which are popular among young people in the US, when the pack bearing the type of cigarette is placed prominently on the table, and the camera clearly captures the type of cigarette that a very young star likes accepted by the audience. There is no doubt that the cigarette company Kools Reward the actress and the film's producers well for this publicity stunt. Those of you who admire Gwyneth Paltrow might be tempted to smoke Kools.
The tobacco industry has a long record of trying to influence Hollywood movie producers. The power of the film to encourage "social acceptance with the normativity of smoking", and the ability of watching smoking in films to increase the desire to smoke, especially among young people, encourages cigarette manufacturers to entice producers, directors and actors to include more smoking scenes in their films. Until appropriate legislation or consensual restrictions are taken to reduce or even eliminate cigarettes from the hands of movie stars on the screen, movies will continue to be a powerful driving force that serves the economic interests of tobacco companies, and seriously harms the health of the audience, especially the young ones.

* Prof. Ben Ami Sela is the Director of the Institute of Pathological Chemistry, Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, Department of Clinical Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University and a member of the Update Committee on Lung Cancer at the Cancer Society
Ben-Ami.Sela@sheba.health.gov.il