Rated R for smoking?

[Tonio]

http://www.slate.com/id/2163255?nav=ais

Powerful anti-smoking groups have been pushing the MPAA to slap any movie that shows smoking with an automatic R rating, unless that movie deals with a historical figure who actually smoked (think Good Night and Good Luck) or shows people suffering hideous consequences as a result of their folly. According to the research of a group called Smoke Free Movies, most PG-13 movies depict smoking, and that contributes to hundreds of thousands of kids taking up cigarettes.

I don't buy the group's claim that movies encourage kids to smoke. From what I remember, most of my peers in school started smoking somewhere between ages 11 and 14, the age when kids think they're adults. They seemed to believe that smoking made them grown-up, like it was an entitlement that came with reaching adulthood.

"All we're asking them to do is to treat smoking in the movies the same way they treat 'f***'." A single utterance of that word in a sexual context in a movie is enough to get an R.

They must be reading too much significance into the after-sex cigarette.

In general, I think the idea is another example of good intentions run horribly amuck. It could set a bad precedent, such as an attempt to ban movie depictions of fast food consumption. Plus, the "hideous consequences" would likely be very heavy-handed to the point of camp, like the old government movie "Reefer Madness."

 

[vraiblonde]

What's amazing is that they inject more and more gratuitous sex into PG-13 movies, yet want to make smoking an automatic R.

Crazy.

I guess it goes to show that the anti-smoking Nazis have more power than the anti-sex Nazis.

 

[Sharon]

Powerful anti-smoking groups have been pushing the MPAA to slap any movie that shows smoking with an automatic R rating

What will they think of next?

 

[Tonio]

What's amazing is that they inject more and more gratuitous sex into PG-13 movies, yet want to make smoking an automatic R.

Just tell them that the cigarettes are phallic symbols.

 

[SD1492]

Well then there goes about 90 percent of TV! For heavens sake. I heard the other day on TV NOT cable the s word , and the f bomb dropped a couple of times. I mean if there going to make movies R rated for a cig. Then I guess that TV will be banned for every home or you know what I mean :

 

[Tonio]

For heavens sake. I heard the other day on TV NOT cable the s word , and the f bomb dropped a couple of times.

What show was this? South Park had the infamous Word of Curse show, but that was announced well in advance. I've heard of the occasional F or S bomb on live news shows or C-Span, but almost nothing from entertainment shows.