Youth, Health Groups to Take Studios to Task -- Online and on the Streets -- for Smoking in This Summer's Youth-Rated Films
Jump to full article: MarketWire, 2009-05-27
Author: SOURCE: Los Angeles County Department of Public Health
Intro: How many children will be exposed to smoking in G, PG and PG-13 movies this summer -- and start smoking because of it? Which studios will produce the most youth-rated films with tobacco imagery?
These are questions that will be answered by a campaign this summer from the American Medical Association (AMA) Alliance, Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, and the California Youth Advocacy Network. Their Movie Smoking Scorecard campaign, announced today, will include:
-- Mobile billboards that will drive around Los Angeles -- and the major studios -- today and tomorrow. The billboard shows a young girl asking, "Which movie studios will cause me to smoke this summer?" and promotes the campaign's Facebook page.
-- A scorecard that regularly tallies the number of tobacco impressions in this summer's youth-rated blockbusters.
-- Facebook pages that host the scorecard, a petition, Twitter feed and videos of youth commenting on smoking they have personally seen in movies this summer.
-- A letter-writing and petition drive across the country during the blockbuster season.
-- A strategically placed billboard located near -- and naming -- the studio with the worst summer record at the end of September.
The blockbuster season's first example of smoking in a youth-rated film is 20th Century Fox's "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," a PG-13 film that has grossed more than $163 million in the U.S. (as of May 24) and has numerous scenes of the main star, actor Hugh Jackman, with a cigar. Another PG-13 blockbuster, "Angels & Demons" by Sony Pictures, includes tobacco imagery and has grossed nearly $82 million in the U.S. as of May 24.
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