Message to Hollywood: Rate Movies That Show Smoking “R”
As stars walk down the blue carpet for the MTV Movie Awards April 9, youth advocates from the Herkimer, Oneida and Madison counties’ Reality Check program will demonstrate against smoking in movies outside the MTV Studios in Toronto.They will join approximately 100 fellow Reality Check members from across New York State, as well as 200 youth from the Youth Advocacy Training Institute in Ontario, Canada.
Their demonstration, designed to push the film industry to rate movies that show smoking R, will focus on three films that were up for Academy Awards in 2016: Creed, The Big Short and Ant-Man. Advocates will carry movie posters with statistics, as well as cardboard heads of smoking movie stars from the three films, to spread the word that exposure to smoking on screen is unhealthy. Throughout the demonstration, members of the group will roam the streets near MTV Studios, trying to educate the crowd and get them to sign their names on postcards intended for the movie industry.
According to a 2014 report from the Surgeon General, giving an R rating to future movies with smoking would be expected to reduce the number of teen smokers by nearly 18 percent and prevent 1 million deaths from smoking among teens and children alive today.
“Exposure to smoking on screen is harmful to our kids’ health, said Heather Bernet, Reality Check coordinator of BRiDGES. “Changing the rating to R will protect kids from tobacco promotion and reduce the risk of them ever starting to smoke”
Victoria Hysell, a Reality Check advocate for five years, said the problem is the movie characters who smoke are usually seen as “cool” or “very charismatic.”
“It makes it seem like smoking is the norm, that smoking is OK,” she said, “and that’s why I think it’s such a big problem.”
This cross-border crusade is a first for the Reality Check and YATI groups. It’s also the first time an awards show will take place across multiple locations versus airing in a singular theater. The show, hosted together by Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart, will be pre-taped live across the Warner Bros. backlot on April 9, the same day Reality check and YATI youth will hold their demonstration. It will air on Sunday, April 10 at 8 p.m.
Reality Check is a teen-led, adult-run program which seeks to prevent and decrease tobacco use among young people throughout New York State.
YATI, a program of the Ontario Lung Association equip youth and young adults with the skills necessary to prevent and reduce tobacco use, promote health and advocate for positive change in their communities.
For more information about the harmful effects of smoking in movies, visitwww.tobaccofreewny.org or contact Heather Bernet of BRiDGES at (315)697-3947.