18 - the certificate '101 Dalmations' would receive, if the anti-smoking lobby were to get their way
An article published this month in Thorax, the medical journal, proposes that those who watch films which contain smoking, are more likely to smoke. As a result, the anti-smoking lobby want to make any film that shows smoking, to be classified an 18.
73% of teenagers, who watched films that contained smoking, were more likely to smoke. The BBC lists “Spider-Man, Bridget Jones Diary and The Matrix” as three of the example ‘smoker’ films. Unfortunately I don’t have access to the full text of the Thorax/BMJ study so can’t read the full list of films, but what an awful piece of ‘science.’ What’s to say that the majority of those films that showed smoking just happened to be good films, and the non-smoking films, bad?
To suggest that there is much smoking at all in modern day cinema or television is absurd. Seventy years ago the biggest and most famous actors and actresses smoked onscreen, but not today.
Smoking is so frowned upon by an inherently Liberal media, that a director couldn’t possibly show a ‘cool’ character, or well-rounded character to either enjoy smoking or look doing it.
There are two exceptions to this rule – Mad Men and A Single Man – both got away with it because they were set so far into the past. Frankly, when you watch either show or film, it’s incredibly refreshing to see.
To suggest that people start smoking now because of a modern day film character is ridiculous, as Eamonn Holmes pointed out – did anyone watch Bridget Jones and think ‘Aha, now there’s something missing from my life!’
The anti-smoking lobby are once again trying to encourage legislation that will not only be useless but counter-productive. Children and teenagers do not like being told not to do something, and banning things makes things more desirable.
This is yet more freedom that the anti-smoking lobby want to strip (and worryingly these blogs are getting closer and closer together). Choice is being taken away from us, all of the time.
The Liberal bias in the media already reduces smoking to the absolute minimum without absurd laws like this being floated.
