There are loads of iconic film starts that are remembered for smoking like James Dean.Smoking is glamorised on screen, in magazines and literature and this perhaps encourages people to smoke but if it was all due to these cultural products, surely the adverts and campaigns that show all the negative sides of smoking would be really effective and just as many people would quit smoking as those that start.
I think everyone’s got the right to choose if they smoke and it isn’t wrong to show it on TV. Perhaps it is over glamorised but so is drinking, drugs, sex and violence, and smoking only directly harms the person smoking it (excluding passive smoking) whereas things like violence are related to other people and so glamorising it can be directly harmful to others. I think everyone’s got free will and the control to choose to smoke or to resist the temptation of such ‘glamorous’ images.
The film ‘Thank You For Not Smoking’ focuses on one man’s campaign to get cigarettes back into movies (like in the 1920’s and 1930’s) and his denial that smoking in movies has any effect on young people. Conversely, the link below suggests that smoking on screen encourages teenagers to take up the habit:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolpda/ukfs_news/hi/newsid_3707000/3707073.stm
Another site suggests the top films that have been suggested by teenagers, to glamorise smoking:
“…high exposure to smoking in movies increased the risk of taking up smoking by 2.71 times in 10- to 14-year-olds.”
http://www.smh.com.au/news/film/lights-cigarette-action/2005/07/02/1119724851387.html
However, there must be other factors involved (e.g. society) otherwise everyone who watched Chicago or Ocean’s 11, would leave the cinema and light-up!
I think everyone’s got the right to choose if they smoke and it isn’t wrong to show it on TV. Perhaps it is over glamorised but so is drinking, drugs, sex and violence, and smoking only directly harms the person smoking it (excluding passive smoking) whereas things like violence are related to other people and so glamorising it can be directly harmful to others. I think everyone’s got free will and the control to choose to smoke or to resist the temptation of such ‘glamorous’ images.
The film ‘Thank You For Not Smoking’ focuses on one man’s campaign to get cigarettes back into movies (like in the 1920’s and 1930’s) and his denial that smoking in movies has any effect on young people. Conversely, the link below suggests that smoking on screen encourages teenagers to take up the habit:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolpda/ukfs_news/hi/newsid_3707000/3707073.stm
Another site suggests the top films that have been suggested by teenagers, to glamorise smoking:
“…high exposure to smoking in movies increased the risk of taking up smoking by 2.71 times in 10- to 14-year-olds.”
http://www.smh.com.au/news/film/lights-cigarette-action/2005/07/02/1119724851387.html
However, there must be other factors involved (e.g. society) otherwise everyone who watched Chicago or Ocean’s 11, would leave the cinema and light-up!
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