Smoking On Screen: Smoking On TV and Film

That ’60s show
New series seek their inner ‘Mad Men’

May 19, 2011
By MAXINE SHEN

In case you missed it the first time — it’s 1962 all over again.

The success of “Mad Men” has paved the way for at least two new, look-alike series this fall — ABC’s sexy stewardess-centered “Pan Am” and NBC’s recreation of the cave man days of the sexual revolution, “The Playboy Club.”

The Cold War era is making a comeback.

The two new series involve “a time period and concepts that elicit wish fulfillment and excitement,” says Jen Grisanti, a former TV exec and author of “Story Line: Finding Gold in Your Life Story.”

Back then, the Playboy Club was the height of cool and pilots were considered rock stars.

That made stewardesses the ultimate male fantasy, Grisanti says.

Setting shows in the early 1960s also allows for the introduction of controversial issues without having to worry about to political correctness.

“It’s hard to find a current issue that doesn’t trace its roots to the 1960s,” says David Marc, co-author of “Prime Time, Prime Movers.”

Topics like secondhand smoke, alcoholism and treatment of women in the workplace, they’re all there.

“There’s the relief from all the PC-ness,” he says. “Imagine how smokers feel watching those people blow smoke rings in an elevator — oh, true liberation.”

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No need to get puffed up about past
A crackdown on old films which promoted smoking is going too far, says Eilis O’Hanlon
Eilis O’Hanlon
September 28 2008
So it is with the inhouse publication of the Center for Tobacco Control, Research and Education at the University of California San Francisco, which has been campaigning for greater restrictions on the right to smoke ever since, well, the Native Americans started this whole passive smoking thing with their so-called “pipes of peace”. Pipes of death, more like, as the centre would doubtless dub them. Who were those Red Indians trying to fool?
The latest issue of Tobacco Control, incredibly, manages to go one step further in the fight against fags by not only being angered by what the cigarette industry is doing today, but by being just as cross about what their predecessors did 70 years ago.
What the researchers, led by one Professor Stanton Glantz, have uncovered are receipts showing how tobacco companies paid Hollywood stars a small, and sometimes not so small, fortune to promote their product. In the late Thirties, Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, Barbara Stanwyck, Myrna Loy and Spencer Tracy were each being advanced $10,000 a year (the equivalent in today’s money of nearly $150,000, or €100,000) to push particular brands on screen.
As a historical document, the list is certainly fascinating — not least to wonder why Bob Hope was getting only a quarter of that amount from the tobacco industry at the time. He obviously priced himself in too cheap. But getting annoyed about it now, as the Center for Tobacco Control so evidently is? That takes heroic levels of irritation. You have to applaud that kind of commitment when you see it.
The Smoking Stasi claim this matters because the money the tobacco industry spent then is still having an effect today in terms of “perpetuating public tolerance” of smoking and encouraging children to take up smoking.
Personally, I’d be delighted if young people were illegally downloading Casablanca or The Maltese Falcon on to their PCs, and if a few of them were stupid enough to take up smoking in the mistaken belief that they would look as cool as Humphrey Bogart unquestionably did with a cigarette to his lips, then it’d be a small price to pay for expanding their cultural horizons beyond the latest Xbox. These are the young people who recently voted The Dark Knight the greatest film ever made. They need help. Urgently.
Alas, this isn’t happening. Quite the opposite. Not only are today’s young people not bombarded with pro-smoking propaganda, unlike their parents and grandparents, they’re more likely to be surrounded by images and messages telling them that smoking is bad, bad, bad, and if they’re still doing it then it’s not because Bob Hope came back from beyond the grave to force the nicotine into their innocent young lungs.
The more you dig into what these people are about, the battier it becomes. They want every film in which a cigarette is shown to be given an instant R rating (the US equivalent of our 18). Not only, for that matter, where tobacco is shown, but even where tobacco is “implied”. How do you “imply” tobacco? That’s like insinuating calories. The only exceptions to the rule they’re prepared to allow are films in which smoking is shown to be the greatest evil to face mankind since the Nazis (they don’t say that in so many words, but you just know that’s what they mean). Well, they wouldn’t want to pass up an opportunity to preach. And they also want anti-smoking ads shown before every film featuring a cigarette.
Doing all this would, by their own guesstimation, save 60,000 lives in America alone every single year. Even if the true figure was a tenth of that, you’d have to concede that they had a point. But who seriously believes that this kind of paternalistic fingerwagging has the slightest effect whatsoever, let alone one so monumental? They cite a poll showing that 80 per cent of people believe youngsters will start smoking if they see people doing it on TV, but just because people believe it doesn’t make it true. A quarter of Americans allegedly believe they’ve been abducted by aliens. That doesn’t mean we can’t laugh at them.
The whole thing is a smokescreen (pun intended), and somewhat reminiscent of the Government’s newly announced plans to send community workers into places where knife crime is a growing problem to tell young people it’s “not cool” to carry a knife.
The only thing you can say in favour of this plan is that it’s slightly better than the UK Government’s latest initiative to fund a 90-date tour around Britain and Ireland by various bands under the “Knife Crime Awareness Tour” banner; but that’s not saying much.
What happens at these meetings in Leinster House? “Well, gentlemen, we have two proposals on the table — one is for the guards to stop and search dodgy-looking young men and for the courts to throw the book at any of them found carrying a knife, and for both of them to keep on doing it until the vicious little gurriers get the message and the civil liberties fruitbats shut up too. The other is to waste millions on free rock gigs and pretend jobs for Guardian-reading community workers with worthless degrees in sociology who wouldn’t otherwise have a hope in hell of getting gainful employment in the real world.
We’re all agreed? Number Two it is. I’ll just get the minister to sign this blank cheque immediately.”
It makes you wonder, have they noticed the posters along the Dart line at the moment for Mark Dornford-May’s upcoming production of The Magic Flute, which shows a rather large, formidable lady with a fierce glint in her eye clutching a knife? Surely the Government could set up some kind of scheme to counteract the terrible effect all this opera is having on Irish young people’s attitudes to weapons? Mozart’s been getting away with it for way too long.
That’s what government’s all about: being seen to be do something about serious problems without having to actually do anything at all. Look at the recent pay talks. Maybe we should just be grateful that the people behind the new plan on combatting knife crime didn’t follow that shining example of governance, or the knife-wielders would have probably managed to secure a deal whereby public finances were used to reward them year on year for making their victims’ lives a misery, the way the public sector u nions did.

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Computer games to get cigarette-style health warnings

March 27, 2008

Video games will be forced to carry cigarette-style health warnings under proposals to protect children from unsuitable digital material.

The report, commissioned by the Prime Minister in response to a growing moral panic about video games, will conclude that they can harm the development of children’s beliefs and value systems and desensitise them to violence. It will also recommend that retailers who sell video games to anyone under the age rating on the box should face a hefty fine or up to five years in prison, The Times has learnt.

The report, written by Tanya Byron, the clinical psychologist and television parenting guru, is also expected to address the dangers of children’s use of the internet.

“Parents are afraid to let their children out,” she said. “So they keep them at home, but allow them to take risks online.”

She will call for a massive campaign to educate parents, teachers and childcarers about how to ensure that children get maximum benefit from the digital world without being exposed to its dangers.

This will include a drive for greater awareness of inappropriate content such as pornography. Parents will be encouraged to monitor children’s online use and keep computers in living rooms rather than bedrooms. Dr Byron, a Times columnist who has two children aged 9 and 12, said that video and online games could have enormous benefits “in terms of learning and development”, but that there was too little awareness among parents about the associated risks they posed and how to manage those risks.

“You would not send your child to the pool without teaching them to swim, so why would you let them online without teaching them to manage the risks?” she said.

Dr Byron said that the current classification system for video games was confusing and not tough enough. At present only games showing sex or gross violence require an age rating from the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) and fewer than 2 per cent of titles carry an 18-certificate.

The alternative Pan-European Game Information system is considered to be ineffective because it uses symbols that are confusing and distributors effectively chose their own ratings by filling in a form about their product.

Dr Byron wants a single statutory classification system. Ratings would have to be displayed prominently on all packaging materials, like health warnings on cigarettes, as well as on shop display cases.

“We have to make child digital safety a priority. If you are under 18, you should not be able to buy an ‘18’ game and if you are under 12, you should not be able to buy a ‘12’ game,” she said. She also wants all games consoles to contain blocking mechanisms that would enable parents to prevent children playing unsuitable games on them.

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‘Potter’ producers ban Radcliffe from smoking

March 17 2008
By Simon Reynolds, Entertainment Reporter

Harry Potter producers have banned star Daniel Radcliffe from smoking in public, fearing it will harm the franchise’s image, The Sun claims.

The 18-year-old actor has reportedly been dubbed “Harry Puffer” due to his 20-a-day cigarette habit. Radcliffe’s co-star Rupert Grint has allegedly been urging him to give up.

An insider revealed: “Every time they call ‘Cut’, he lights up. It’s disgusting.

“Friends and co-stars including Rupert Grint have been warning him about the dangers of smoking. But he doesn’t take any notice.

“He’s been having late nights out with stars like Kevin Spacey and Stephen Fry and seems to have picked up bad habits from the luvvie set.”

It was recently announced that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the final book in the wizard series, will be made into two films by studio Warner Bros.

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Call to restrict smoking scenes?

March 16, 2008
Rowan Bridge?

An anti-smoking group in Liverpool is calling for all movies with smoking scenes to be given an 18 certificate.

SmokeFree Liverpool told BBC’s Radio 5 Live it wanted to see the change but the film classification board said the idea was “heavy-handed”.

The push – backed by the city council – comes amid research showing young people pick up the bad habit from watching films containing smoking.

One city official said Liverpool may even act alone to restrict film access.

Andy Hull, the city’s head of public protection and chair of SmokeFree Liverpool, said an adult rating on movies that depict smoking will reduce the number of young people lighting up.

“The international evidence…is that one in two children between 11 and 18 who witness smoking in movies actually experiment with – and therefore start – smoking themselves,” Mr Hull said of recent research.

Liverpool already carries the unenviable title of lung cancer capital of England, with some of the highest smoking rates in the UK.

Not popular

Mr Hull said Liverpool wants the British Board of Film Classification to act.

HAVE YOUR SAY I thought we elected councils to provide services not become our moral guardians? Russell James, Wirral

But a spokeswoman for the film board said smoking and alcohol use are already taken into consideration when a film is rated and a blanket 18 certificate for all smoking scenes is “heavy handed”.

“To simply classify a film 18 because people smoke in it would not be popular with the public,” the spokeswoman said, adding an extensive public consultation has already examined the issue to come up with existing guidelines.

For example, if a character popular with children such as Harry Potter was somehow promoting cigarettes or seen smoking, the film would be rated accordingly, she said.

“We would take that very seriously,” she added.

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 scientific evidence gathered in the United States and elsewhere.

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.

She said if part of the role of the film board is to protect young people from potential harm, then smoking should be included in those considerations.

Mr Hull said if the BBFC is not prepared to adopt an 18 certificate then the city will consider using licensing laws to bring in its own stricter ratings for films screened locally.

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Rovers Return to get smoking area
January 2 2008
Leigh Holmwood Guardian Unlimited
The smoking ban may have come into force in England in July, but the regulars at Coronation Street’s Rovers Return pub have had nowhere to indulge in their nicotine habit – until now.
The ITV1 soap is to move with the times and introduce a smoking area in the back yard of the fictional pub so that characters such as Jack Duckworth and pub landlady Liz McDonald don’t have to puff on the street.
The change, which will be seen on screens in the spring, will come as the Rovers Return gets a spruce up.
But soap executives have been quick to deny a story in today’s Daily Star claiming the pub could close for good or even be turned into, gasp… a gastro-pub or trendy wine bar.
A spokeswoman for the show said the pub would not even close for the work to be done, which she added was not “radical”.
“Liz simply decides that the pub needs a bit of a spruce-up because the decor is looking a little shabby,” she said.
“She gives the job to Vernon as a project to keep him out of mischief but viewers can relax safe in the knowledge that the changes will not be at all radical.
“The biggest change will be a smoking area in the back yard to save the punters having to stand out in the street. “The only changes to the interior of the pub will be a lick of paint and new wallpaper. The bar will stay in the same place, the booths will remain, as will the coloured glass.”
Soap executives were said to be “angry” over the Daily Star story.
“It is frustrating for us when false stories like this appear and it does cause concern for our viewers but we would like to reassure them that there is no truth in this story at all,” the spokeswoman added.
The Rover’s Return was one of the first TV soap pubs to abide by the new smoking law when it came into force in England on July 1.

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Top Gear pipes anger anti-smokers

16 October 2007

Anti-smoking campaigners have asked the BBC to apologise after Top Gear presenters Jeremy Clarkson and James May lit pipes on Sunday’s show.
“Smoking in a studio is illegal. We would hope programme-makers make some form of apology,” said a spokeswoman for Action on Smoking and Health (Ash).
Waverley Borough Council said it was investigating the incident at Dunsfold Aerodrome in Surrey.
The BBC declined to comment on whether or not what took place was illegal.
All three of the show’s presenters pulled pipes out from under their chairs during a discussion about Porsche-branded products, but Richard Hammond did not light up, having recently given up smoking.
After putting the wrong end of the pipe in his mouth, Clarkson, 47, was seen running from the stage.
The ban on smoking in enclosed public spaces in England was introduced in July, following similar laws in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland.
Flouting the ban can result in fines of up to ?50 for individuals and ?2,500 for businesses who allow people to smoke on their premises.
The BBC’s spokeswoman said it had received just a couple of viewers’ complaints.
‘No audience complaints’
“During an item in Top Gear, making fun of car merchandise, the presenters lit up branded pipes, which contained herbal tobacco,” she said.
“We are very upfront about the style and tone of the show, so viewers know what to expect.”
“There were no complaints from members of the audience present during the filming,” she added.
One audience member told the BBC News website: “No-one in the audience seemed to mind when they lit up – people laughed, although the room did get quite smoky.”
‘Not appropriate’
Ash’s spokeswoman said smoking was “not appropriate for the BBC”.
“There are no exceptions,” she said, adding: “You cannot smoke in a public place. This isn’t covered by artistic integrity.”
She said she did not consider it appropriate to fine the BBC, but that producers “should be reminded at the very least of the law, and make sure they abide by it”.
A spokeswoman for Waverley Borough Council said footage of the show had not yet been viewed, but added: “Smoking is not permitted in a smoke-free place.”
The Rolling Stones flouted the ban in August when Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood smoked cigarettes during a gig at London’s O2 arena.
The venue was not fined after Greenwich Council said it was “satisfied” the incident was a one-off.

Watch the Video.? Well, OK, in addition to taking on his little rodent friend on last night’s episode of Top Gear, Jeremy Clarkson also managed to be imbecilic enough to stick the lit end of a pipe by Porsche Design into his mouth. While it’s true the hot end of a Porsche does normally go in the back, wethinks reversing the pipe for the sake of illustrating it may be a bit hazardous to the roof of one’s mouth and tip o’ the tongue.? On the other hand, it certainly makes for some comedic gold.

Fun boy three
I couldn’t have chosen a better time to write about Top Gear (see below). Last night’s programme featured a classic moment which you can read about HERE. Scroll down – the photos alone are hilarious. Better still, see a video clip HERE.
Comment at Taking Liberties

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Smoking evicted from Big Brother
22 April 2007
BRIAN BRADY
THANKS to reality television they all lost their liberty, many their dignity and a few their self-respect. Now the government is planning to take away the last remaining pleasure available to Big Brother housemates.

Ministers have confirmed that when England falls in to line with Scotland this summer by banning smoking in most enclosed places, the Big Brother house will be among them.

A volatile combination of the incoming ban and increased attempts to stop the habit looking “glamorous” on screen has put paid to one of the housemates’ few releases from the tension in the most famous social experiment on television.

Housemates will be warned of the new rules before they step over the threshold of the house for BB07, and any breaches could cost the programme-makers a fine of ?2,500.

The humble habit has been responsible for some of the most dramatic moments during the six-year history of the show and its celebrity version. Nadia Almeida, the hot-tempered winner of the fifth series of Big Brother, had a tantrum when she was refused access to her cigarettes.

But health minister Caroline Flint has now come over all ‘Big Brother’ herself and declared that the 2007 programme will be smoke-free when it starts later this summer.

And she will maintain pressure on film and television watchdogs to keep smoking off-screen generally.

“We are committed to pressing the responsible bodies to reduce the depiction of smoking in television and films,” Flint said. “As a result, the British Board of Film Classification has revised its guidance to take account of portrayal of smoking in its classification of films.

“Following pressure from the Department, Ofcom TV broadcasting guidelines have been tightened up to discourage the portrayal of smoking before the 9pm watershed in a glamorous or positive way, unless editorially necessary. In line with the smoke-free law coming into force in July 2007, no smoking will be allowed in this year’s Big Brother house.”

Big Brother producers Endemol have been informed the programme will fall under the stiff restrictions from July 1, when smoking is banned in all public indoor spaces. Inmates may be able to smoke in the garden, but the house – at Elstree Studios – has been designated a place of work.

The incoming legislation will, as in Scotland, outlaw smoking in all public places including pubs, offices and public transport.

Lighting up will be allowed in private homes as well as places described by Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt as “like homes”, such as army barracks and prisons. But the Big Brother house will not be allowed to slip through the loophole.

“The house and camera runs are classed as one building,” a Hertsmere Borough Council spokeswoman said. “It is a studio and classed as a workplace, therefore inside the house there should be a total ban.

“We have been in consultation with Endemol and our advice has been no smoking inside. Participants could smoke in the garden as long as it had no roof and was a reasonably open space.”

An Endemol spokeswoman said: “We will adhere to legislation and any rules imposed by Hertsmere Borough Council.”

The growing government assault on smoking has provoked a furious backlash from smokers’ groups, actors and producers who claim they should be free to depict the habit as usual in films, plays and programmes. At last year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Mel Smith blasted the Scottish ban and suggested he would light up on stage during the play in which he played Churchill. In the event, he backed down.

Earlier this month, Welsh doctors criticised Coronation Street’s Deirdre Barlow for chain-smoking her way through daughter Tracy’s fictional TV trial. They claimed the character’s on-screen smoking could persuade impressionable teenagers that not only was smoking acceptable, but that it was also a good way of dealing with stress.

Dr Richard Lewis, Welsh secretary of the BMA, said: “There is no dramatic need to show people smoking. Moods like stress can be portrayed perfectly well without a character puffing out clouds of smoke.

“The most effective way to address smoking is to do all we can to discourage youngsters from taking up the habit in the first place, and we must do all we can to educate them that tobacco smoke kills and that it’s a stupid idea to take up the habit in the first place.

“Children are open to suggestion. The less exposure they have to smoking, the better.”

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Doctors Call For Ban On Smoking In TV Soaps

10th April 2007

Coronation Street’s Deirdre Barlow should be forced to stub out her fags, say doctors who want a voluntary ban on all on-screen smoking.

They claim even chain-smoking dowdy Deirdre – played by Anne Kirkbride – acts as a role model to teenagers, encouraging them to start the killer habit.

Experts at the British Medical Association say that the influence of TV on smoking is set to become enormous as the smoking ban in public places is introduced throughout the country this summer.

They say TV will be one of the only places they see people lighting up as smokers are cleared from pubs, restaurants and clubs.

Dr Richard Lewis, Welsh Secretary of the BMA, accused programmes such as Corrie of being “irresponsible” and giving away free advertising by showing characters puffing on a cigarette, without developing deadly diseases such as lung cancer that can result from the habit.

He said: “Rarely is smoking portrayed in an unattractive manner or associated with negative consequences. Television serves as an indirect method of smoking advertising.”

BMA spokesman John Jenkins said: “Deirdre Barlow is obviously stressed – who wouldn’t be with a daughter like Tracey – but is that a good enough reason to show her puffing her way through a mountain of cigarettes three or four times a week?””

It follows reports that EastEnders bosses will defy the English smoking ban – set to be introduced on July 1st – and keep characters such as Dot Cotton smoking, even though they will be fined up to ?2,500 a time.

It is claimed the EastEnders set is classed as a workplace, meaning lighting up would be illegal – even inside their homes.

But one soap boss is said to have vowed: “We will fight it. We don’t care if police try to come on set let them try. We have to portray real life -and people smoke.”

Dr Lewis, speaking a week after the smoking ban was introduced in Wales, said children were vulnerable to images of smokers on the TV, with soaps such as Corrie and Enders a particular problem because they are watched by millions of youngsters.

He also blasted music videos for suggesting cigs made singers powerful and more attractive to the opposite sex, saying broadcasters have the responsibility to banish smoking from the screen.

He said: “Although bans have prevented direct tobacco advertising on television there is still widespread portrayal of smoking on television in prime-time programming, movies and music videos.

“In music videos, smokers are typically portrayed as attractive, successful, and influential and in a positive social context, often with sexually suggestive content.

“Television provides adolescents with role models, including movie and television stars who portray smoking as a personally and socially rewarding behaviour. Children are very vulnerable to suggestion, and the less exposure they have to adults smoking, the better.

“There is no dramatic need to show people smoking. Moods like stress can be portrayed perfectly well without the character puffing out clouds of smoke.

“The average smoker will lose about 10 years of life because of smoking. Many smokers take up the habit at a young age and the majority, by their early 20s, wish they had never started.”

Mr Jenkins said there would be no need for new laws as long as TV companies agreed to take cigs off the screen.

A spokeswoman for Coronation Street admitted there was no policy to show smoking responsibly on the soap, but claimed nagging Ken Barlow provided a balance of opinion.

She said: “It is a drama. Some characters smoke and others do not. We do not have a policy and I’m not aware that other shows do.

“Coronation Street does address the fact that Deirdre smokes and there are often scenes where Ken is encouraging her not to smoke.”

The spokeswoman said there were plans for storylines around the smoking ban, but refused to say whether Deirdre would be forced to give up the cigs.

She added: “We are planning a lot of storylines in June and July when the English smoking ban comes in, connected with the ban.

“The legislation is something that [production company] Granada will look at as to where characters can smoke.”

The BBC said they were “in discussion” about the implication of the ban.