Facts About Smoking in Movies

Frequency of Smoking Incidents in Movies

The organization Breathe California of Sacramento-Emigrant Trails established Thumbs Up! Thumbs Down!, a project that reviews and counts the incidences of smoking on film. While its statistics show an overall decline in the amount of smoking incidents during the past 10 to 20 years, as of 2009, 54 percent of PG-13 rated movies still contained scenes of tobacco use as did almost half of all movies released that year.

According to a study conducted in Ursinus College in 2000, smokers in movies are frequently shown to be more exciting, intriguing, robust and enjoyable to be with than their non-smoker counterparts. Often, the smoker is either wealthy and influential, or the devil-may-care rebel who scoffs at the restrictions imposed on him by a repressive standard, both of which appeal to the general public and to youth in particular. The former impression of smokers as coming from high-class sectors is especially misleading because smoking was found to be an indulgence of only 20 percent of people of esteemed socioeconomic status. These are perceptions that can only help the tobacco industry sell its products to those who want to emulate these characters.

It has been observed by anti-smoking advocates at Scenesmoking.org that on-screen tobacco use is often exaggerated compared to real-life use. Characters on the screen are much more likely to light up a cigarette than actual persons. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention logged 17 billion instances of smoking in movies in 2009, down from the 30 to 60 billion instances recorded from 1999 to 2001, but still a significant number. This leads to a distorted view by moviegoers of the frequency with which the average individual smokes, and reinforces the notion that, since it is so widespread and common, it should be OK to smoke every so often, if not more.

The American Medical Association, reported in 2007 that as many as 4,000 teens pick up their first cigarette each day, with about half of them doing so because they were influenced by a smoker that they saw on film. Even teens who live active, athletic lifestyles are not spared this fate, though they are half as likely to light up compared to their non-athletic counterparts.