Puffing Away All Credibility

(I should note that my typically sporadic and light weekend posting will probably continue into next Tuesday.)

I don’t smoke cigarettes for a lot of reasons. Aside from the fact that my body rejected it at an early age, I’ve never found it pleasurable in any way. I also have a very special animus towards the cigarette companies that continued to manufacture and sell them in this country long after the surgeon general’s report in 1964 confirmed the link between smoking and lung cancer. As far as I’m concerned, these cretins are responsible for addicting an entire generation of men and women in this country, and they continue to do so even now all over the world.

That being said, I should add that there is now an entire body of information in existence that documents the dangers of cigarette smoking. There are all kinds of ways for people to try and break their addiction (not always guaranteed, I realize – I know what my father went through, and he never really completely kicked it), and the movie “The Insider” even depicts the games played by the tobacco industry.

In short, I think if someone decides to start smoking in this day and age, they have themselves to blame for it first and foremost.

Does that mean we should “cast a blind eye” towards how cigarette smoking is portrayed on the movies and T.V.? Of course not. However, I think this story (about the possibility of movies receiving an R rating for cigarette smoking) is a little worrisome.

Here’s a statement demonstrating my mastery of the obvious; the movie ratings system is a big deal if you’re a parent. My biggest concerns (not necessarily in the same order all the time) if I’m watching with the young one are excessive violence, sex, and language. He already knows, though, that cigarette smoking is bad, though we reinforce that message from time to time.

But what if some well-meaning individuals out there start throwing their weight around on this? Suppose, for example, that if in “Spider Man 2” (and don’t tell me anything about the third movie – we’ll get to it one of these days), Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst were smoking in addition to all of the scenes of Doc Ock bashing people with blood splattering all over the place?

It’s a great movie, but it’s borderline PG-13 as it is. If people in the movie were smoking and it was rated R, though, then that would make a big difference because he would not be able to watch it.

And yes, I’ve seen “Pulp Fiction” (another example), and the characters in the movie smoke like chimneys, in addition to doing all kinds of other things that I definitely don’t advocate for anyone else. But given the rating the movie has for the other reasons I alluded to, it should only appeal to adults. And if an adult is persuaded to smoke for the first time because of what John Travolta and Uma Thurman are doing, then I think they have bigger issues than just a newly acquired addiction to cigarettes.

In the Times story, film producer Lindsay Doran states “it would be nice if we could leave this to the filmmakers.” Actually, I think it would be more than “nice.” I think that is the way to go here, and here’s another factor…

“It’s an art, not a science,” said Joan Graves, chairman of the ratings board, of the actual weight that would be placed on smoking in assigning a rating. “It all depends on how impactful the smoking is.”

I think the Graves comment definitely applies to a movie like “Pulp Fiction.” There’s a time to let adults be adults and do bad things depending on the creative vision on the person behind the work.

Anything else sure would be a drag (sorry – too easy).