"Rango" angers anti-smoking groups
March 8, 2011
Source: News10/USA Today
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Anti-smoking advocates are calling the animated PG movie Rango a public health hazard for its numerous depictions of smoking.
The film, which opened Friday and topped the weekend box office with a gross of $38 million, includes at least 60 instances of characters smoking, said Kori Titus, CEO of the Sacramento-based non-profit Breathe California.
One of Breathe California's projects is "Thumbs Up! Thumbs Down!" - in which trained young people and adults analyze films' tobacco content. Each time a character is seen smoking is counted as one instance, Titus said, adding she was taken aback when she received an e-mail Sunday about the frequency of smoking in Rango. The only other animated film on par with that, she said, was 101 Dalmatians, with about 60 instances of Cruella De Vil smoking.
Because there are so many scenes in which characters smoke, she said, her group might not be able to get a definitive count until Rango comes out on DVD.
"A lot of kids are going to start smoking because of this movie," said Stanton Glantz, director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California-San Francisco. Youths who frequently see smoking onscreen are two to three times more likely to begin smoking than peers who rarely see it depicted, he said.
On Feb. 23, Smoke Free Movies, a project of Glantz's, ran a full-page ad in Variety and the Hollywood Reporter that slammed the smoking in Rango. "How many studio execs did it take to OK smoking in a 'PG' movie?" the ad asked.
Said Glantz, "If we had known it's as bad as it is, this ad would have been even tougher."
Virginia Lam, a spokeswoman for Paramount, Rango's maker, said the title character never smokes. "The images of smoking in the film ... are portrayed by supporting characters and are not intended to be celebrated or emulated," she said.
From 2007 through 2010, Lam said, the number of Paramount's tobacco-free films across all ratings increased 25%, and only one G- or PG-rated film, a documentary, depicted tobacco. Lam said the studio also has included anti-smoking public service announcements on DVDs of youth-related movies that depict smoking.
Nevertheless, Rango has renewed the call by Glantz and other anti-smoking advocates for the Motion Picture Association of America, or MPAA, to rate any film that shows smoking as "R."
Of more than 2,500 movies rated from May 2007 to May 2010, nearly three-fourths of those that depicted smoking were rated R, and instances of smoking in films not rated R have declined, MPAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Kaltman said. Still, she said, "the (ratings) system should not be held up as a vehicle dedicated to cause less smoking in films."
Source: News10/USA Today
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Anti-smoking advocates are calling the animated PG movie Rango a public health hazard for its numerous depictions of smoking.
The film, which opened Friday and topped the weekend box office with a gross of $38 million, includes at least 60 instances of characters smoking, said Kori Titus, CEO of the Sacramento-based non-profit Breathe California.
One of Breathe California's projects is "Thumbs Up! Thumbs Down!" - in which trained young people and adults analyze films' tobacco content. Each time a character is seen smoking is counted as one instance, Titus said, adding she was taken aback when she received an e-mail Sunday about the frequency of smoking in Rango. The only other animated film on par with that, she said, was 101 Dalmatians, with about 60 instances of Cruella De Vil smoking.
Because there are so many scenes in which characters smoke, she said, her group might not be able to get a definitive count until Rango comes out on DVD.
"A lot of kids are going to start smoking because of this movie," said Stanton Glantz, director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California-San Francisco. Youths who frequently see smoking onscreen are two to three times more likely to begin smoking than peers who rarely see it depicted, he said.
On Feb. 23, Smoke Free Movies, a project of Glantz's, ran a full-page ad in Variety and the Hollywood Reporter that slammed the smoking in Rango. "How many studio execs did it take to OK smoking in a 'PG' movie?" the ad asked.
Said Glantz, "If we had known it's as bad as it is, this ad would have been even tougher."
Virginia Lam, a spokeswoman for Paramount, Rango's maker, said the title character never smokes. "The images of smoking in the film ... are portrayed by supporting characters and are not intended to be celebrated or emulated," she said.
From 2007 through 2010, Lam said, the number of Paramount's tobacco-free films across all ratings increased 25%, and only one G- or PG-rated film, a documentary, depicted tobacco. Lam said the studio also has included anti-smoking public service announcements on DVDs of youth-related movies that depict smoking.
Nevertheless, Rango has renewed the call by Glantz and other anti-smoking advocates for the Motion Picture Association of America, or MPAA, to rate any film that shows smoking as "R."
Of more than 2,500 movies rated from May 2007 to May 2010, nearly three-fourths of those that depicted smoking were rated R, and instances of smoking in films not rated R have declined, MPAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Kaltman said. Still, she said, "the (ratings) system should not be held up as a vehicle dedicated to cause less smoking in films."
Filed Under: America
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http://www.indonesiatobacco.com/2011/03/angers-anti-smoking-groups.html
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