Classic: Disney favourite 101 Dalmatians - featuring Cruella De Ville - would
be among the films affected if proposals to give
smoking scenes an 18 certificate are passed
Posted on 03/16/2008 12:10:27 PM PDT by yankeedame
By COLIN FERNANDEZ - More by this author »
Last updated at 16:04pm on 16th March 2008
Films featuring smoking could be given an 18 certificate to stop children being encouraged to take up the habit.
Many children's favourites would be hit by the proposed ban - including Disney classics such as 101 Dalmatians, Pinocchio and Peter Pan.
The call for raising the age limit in children's films comes from a pressure group, SmokeFree Liverpool, which has received backing from Liverpool City Council.
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Classic: Disney favourite 101 Dalmatians - featuring Cruella De Ville - would
be among the films affected if proposals to give
smoking scenes an 18 certificate are passed
It claims research shows young people are heavily influenced by seeing smoking depicted on the screens.
The council has said it will use its powers to stop under-18s seeing the films in Liverpool if the British Board of Film Classification does not adopt its proposals.
Liverpool council's head of public protection, Andy Hull, who is also the chairman of SmokeFree Liverpool said yesterday: "It really cannot disappear fast enough for us.
"Latest figures for the year 2000 analysed 480 movies during the year.
"Of the 3,300 children, young people, in Liverpool who started smoking that year, over half - 1,650 - will have started smoking as direct result of seeing these images on the big screen.
"When you think about it, that's not such a big leap of the imagination really because we have a film classification system to protect young people from all sorts of influences - seeing violent images and all the rest - so why wouldn't smoking be one of those influences that young people pick up, think is cool, and act to change their behaviour?"
But BBFC spokeswoman Sue Clark insisted there was no need to classify all films as 18 just because they showed characters smoking.
She said there had been a decline in scenes depicting smoking in recent years, and held up two examples - recent Oscar-winner Atonement, currently rated 15; and classic Casablanca, currently a U rating - which would immediately have to be reclassified as 18 films.
She said: "We do have a policy where smoking is concerned, and if we see smoking in films which is actively promoting smoking to young people, then yes, of course, we would take action against them, give them a higher rating if necessary.
"But we do not actively see films like that. The modern films in modern settings do not have smoking in them simply because you cannot smoke in the public places where the films are being made."
There had to be allowances for smoking in a historical context, she said.
"If there were characters aimed at young children that were actively promoting smoking - and the example I use is Harry Potter - then the film would be rated accordingly," she added.
Liverpool is the lung cancer capital of England, and has some of the highest smoking rates in the UK.
Mr Hull said the city was prepared to use licensing laws to bring in stricter ratings for films screened locally if no nationwide move was taken.
Mr Hull said: "The city council are committed. There is a pioneering spirit on this which is based on some of those statistics and you need to do something about that."
Dr Stacey Anderson, of the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies, said the evidence of smoking's influence on young people is very clear.
"The more smoking a child views in films, the more likely they are to take up smoking," she said of the international findings of scientific research on the subject.
Dr Anderson said characters do not even have to be smoking for there to be an adverse influence, just the sight of a pack of cigarettes or a tobacco advertisement has an effect on youth attitude.
Classic Disney films often feature as films that have a high amount of smoking.
Pinocchio in the Disney film is encouraged to smoke by two ne'er-do-well companions, in 101 Dalmatians Cruella de Ville smokes from a lengthy cigarette holder, while Captain Hook smokes cigars in Peter Pan.
Alice in Wonderland has three smoking characters - the dodo, with a pipe, the walrus, with a cigar, and the caterpillar, with a hookah.
Last year, Disney said it would no longer allow characters in its films to smoke - and would "discourage" smoking in films produced by its other labels, Touchstone and Miramax.
Where is the breaking point?... is it near?
Man....what kind of insufferable prat sits around and looks for smoking in movies.
oh darn
well you can always right click on the pic
WHy don’t they outlaw it?
Because they are addicted to the money? Call me stupid.
The anti-smoking forces are the perfect example of what happens when a social or health issue becomes an industry: more and more restrictions must be imposed to keep it profitable. Real humans have gotten the point, now it’s time to focus on the fake humans.
Pretend they are smoking marijuana. Then it will make sense.
Seriously, they need to be pushed into getting a grip on reality!
Didn’t you know? You do! In many places. Or was that sarcasm?
Tag line change.
Another day, another liberal going out of his way to prove that my user name is 100% right.
Yeah, that statement was covered so thick in sarcasm I didn’t feel it necessary to post a </sarcasm>.
It's usually required
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