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Depiction of Smoking in Movies Remains High: New Research Presented at World Conference on Tobacco OR Health 

Smoking in the movies continues to prompt American youth to start smoking, public health experts said today at the World Conference on Tobacco or Health, taking place in Washington, D.C. this week. Experts from the American Legacy Foundation®, a national public health foundation devoted to prevention and cessation of tobacco use, and Dartmouth Medical School today released a new report finding that American youth continue to be exposed to smoking images in youth-rated films.

This information comes on the heels of the July 7th announcement from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, which cited information from a previous study indicating that after decades of decline, smoking in the movies increased rapidly in the early 1990s and – by the year 2002 -- was back to levels last seen in 1950.

“This news is a wake-up call to public health officials and other leaders,” said American Legacy Foundation® President and CEO, Dr. Cheryl Healton. “We have seen a downward ‘ratings creep,’ in which studios are shifting depictions of smoking into teen-rated films, and research continues to prove the link between young people seeing smoking in movies and starting to smoke.” Teen-rated films are those movies earning G, PG and PG-13 ratings.

The American Legacy Foundation® and Dartmouth Medical School research – titled First Look: Trends in Top Box Office Movie Use, 1996-2004 – shows that despite a significant decline in the number of tobacco depictions in R-rated movies, no such decline was observed within youth-rated movies during the same nine year period. For this report, researchers reviewed 900 movies, including the top-100 highest-grossing movies per year from 1996 through 2004. Data gathered from these films show that tobacco is depicted in more than 70 percent of youth-rated films and nearly 90 percent of R-rated movies.

“Knowing that tobacco use and imagery remain unchanged in youth-rated films is disturbing, despite research showing that the overall proportion of movies containing tobacco use is down,” said Dr. James Sargent, co-author of the First Look report and a professor of pediatrics at Dartmouth Medical School.

In addition it is important to note that previous reports indicate that in the mid-1990s, the Motion Picture Association of American appears to have “down-rated” movies, resulting in PG-13 ratings for many films that would have previously been rated R. This change may be partly due to economic forces: in 1999 the average PG-13 summer blockbuster garnered $35 million, whereas a similar R-rated movie earned only $20 million.

This change in approach to ratings and continued tobacco imagery in youth-rated films, means that parents must take an active role is determining what images their children see in the movies, public health experts at the World Conference on Tobacco or Health stated. A new parents’ guide, Screen Out!, was launched by the Smoke Free Movies Action Network, the first campaign designed to help America’s parents protect their kids against tobacco imagery in movies. The guide provides families with the facts about smoking in the movies and the trend’s impact on youth smoking in the United States. It also provides parents and civic groups the information, tools and strategies they need to make a difference on a national scale. The campaign is endorsed by the American Legacy Foundation®, American Heart Association, American Medical Association and the State of New York Department of Health.

“The Screen Out! Guide is designed to help parents and community groups understand the effects of smoking in movies on their kids,” said Stanton Glantz, Ph.D., Director, Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, University of California, San Francisco. “Through this guide, we’re sharing research information that parents can then use to make their voices heard in their communities, and enter into a dialogue with the companies that control Hollywood and get smoking out of youth-rated films.”

Mainstream U.S. films have delivered 44 billion tobacco impressions since 1999

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