If you accept the premise that being exposed to images of a thing makes you more likely to do that thing, then get a load of this story: researchers at Dartmouth have run a study that determines that kids get exposed to billions if not actual, outright bajillions of images of people smoking in movies, and consequently... uh... bad stuff happens or something.
In the new study, the Dartmouth team examined the incidents of tobacco use in 534 hit movies from 1998 to the first four months of 2003. Then, in a survey of more than 6,500 adolescents aged 10 to 14, they determined how many kids had seen those films.
According to the researchers' calculations, smoking appeared in 74 percent of the movies. They extrapolated that, overall, teens saw 13.9 billion images of smoking -- an average of 665 images per child aged 10 to 14.
That's right, kids are seeing cigarettes in the movies over and over and over again. It gets worse, however:
Films that delivered the most "smoking impressions" included The Perfect Storm, Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring -- yes, the ritual smoking in the J.R.R. Tolkien movie counted -- Wild Wild West and Saving Private Ryan.
The study doesn't actually go on to conclude that these kids were more likely to become smokers as a result. You're just left to make that leap yourself, because it's a proven fact, as I mentioned, that the more times you see a thing, the more likely you are to do a thing. Which explains why, after seeing
Buckaroo Banzai 400 times since I was a kid, I now spend my days driving jet cars through solid matter.
What really irritates me about this study, or at minimum, the conclusions some folks are drawing, is this kind of statement:
The good news is that movie studios are finally paying attention to the problem of smoking in movies, Sargent said. "Five years ago, people in Hollywood didn't even discuss this topic. Now, it's being discussed at the highest level of corporations. I think Hollywood is getting the message, and they're thinking about it."
Exactly what message are they getting here? That when directors like Steven Spielberg sit down to make exhaustively researched period pieces like
Saving Private Ryan, they should "think of the kids" and make sure all the G.I.s chew gum instead of smoke? News flash: people smoke in movies because people smoke in
life. Yes, Hollywood has a tendency to glamorize all kinds of activities, including but not limited to driving very fast cars through traffic and smashing into fruit stands, kicking and punching people a lot without stopping to call an ambulance, and shooting people a lot until they die. Why are we fixated on smoking in movies instead of shooting people a lot in movies?
I do realize that smoking is wicked bad for you; as a former chain smoker, I do get it. But please, can we have a sense of priority here? Pressuring Hollywood to decrease its portrayal of smoking seems completely orthogonal to addressing the actual underlying issue that smoking wrecks people and taxes our health system; it's like trying to curb drunk driving by pressuring people to call off barbecues because, you know, kids might get exposed to a can of beer.
