Do Films With Smoking Scenes Need Adult Ratings?

Even though the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control advise the adult ratings should be applied to films which contain smoking scenes, very few governments have complied with this recommendation. Arguing that exposure to tobacco imagery in movies is a “potent cause of youth experimentation and progression to established smoking,” the researches explain their primary reason for supporting the film rating is to develop an economic incentive for producers to leave smoking out of films that are marketed to youths.

Smoking scene with Keira Knightley in Domino movie

Much more challenging is the fact that “many governments provide generous subsidies to the US film industry to produce youth-rated films that contain smoking and as such indirectly promote youth smoking,” the researchers say.

They conclude:

“Governments should ensure that film subsidy programmes are harmonized with public health goals by making films with tobacco imagery ineligible for public subsidies.”

Simon Chapman from the University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia and Matthew Farrelly from RTI International, USA strongly argued against adult ratings for movies with smoking scenes, in an article also published in this week’s PloS Medicine addressing the same issue. They gave out four reasons why they believed this to be ill-advised. Arguing that:

1. the connection between exposure to smoking in movies and smoking uptake is vexed by substantial confounding,
2. exposure to smoking scenes is much wider than just movies, including internet,
3. adult classification of films is a highly inefficient way of preventing youth exposure to adult-related content and
4. censorship is not the best method for this public health issue.

The researchers explain:

“We believe that many citizens and politicians who would otherwise give unequivocal support to important tobacco control policies would not wish to be associated with efforts to effectively censor movies other than to prevent commercial product placement by the tobacco industry.”