Up Front by Emma Hart

Read Post

Up Front: No Smoke

177 Responses

First ←Older Page 1 2 3 4 5 8 Newer→ Last

  • giovanni tiso,

    I'd be really happy with none of course. But that is an unreasonable attitude to have. But if there are actors who feel that they have to oblige the director/writer/producer/bank roller then so be it. I would hate to think they would not get paid if they did not light up though.

    Just so we're on the same page: you're still okay with people shooting each other and beating the shit out of each other in films, yes? Getting drunk? Being comically blotto?

    Smoking is one thing that people do. Why it should be banned from films just because some other people may see it as an advertisement for smoking is frankly beyond me.

    On the possibly amusing anecdote front, I remember an interview with
    Nino Manfredi in which he spoke of this scene they were shooting outdoors in what was supposed to be summer in the film, but it was winter and the actors' breath came out in puffs of smoke, so they covered for that by making them smoke cigarettes but in order to work it had to be frantic smoking.

    See smoking has its uses.

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report Reply

  • Megan Wegan,

    Those are all reasonable points. My major concern is that quitting smoking may lead to running - is that a price that we are prepared to pay, as a society?

    Heh. I've been trying to figure out a way to make that joke all afternoon. Well played, sir.

    Welly • Since Jul 2008 • 1275 posts Report Reply

  • Ross Mason,

    Just so we're on the same page: you're still okay with people shooting each other and beating the shit out of each other in films, yes? Getting drunk? Being comically blotto?

    All hilariously good fun I would have thought. Don't we do that all the time? All 25% of us? Yeah right.

    Of course not Gio. I can't see the point of watching so much CSI crap that it seems that every forensic geek has to have a body in 6534 bits to put together 5 nights a week!

    You can see enough of "Real World" violence by going to Wikileaks. oh...and beheading ransomed bodies. Or Orks.

    But Pulp Fiction WAS funny. And I was the first to start to laugh in the theatre I hasten to add!!!

    Moderation I think is the word. Moderation.

    Upper Hutt • Since Jun 2007 • 1590 posts Report Reply

  • Ross Mason,

    Running...hehe. Nice.

    Upper Hutt • Since Jun 2007 • 1590 posts Report Reply

  • Emma Hart,

    Tobacco use in film and TV is not just there for verisimilitude, or characterisation, or artistic reasons. It is paid product placement by tobacco companies. They pay for it, as a form of advertising, because it works.

    Lucy, are you saying that there would be no cigarette smoking in film and TV unless the tobacco industry directly pay for it to be there? Would you like to take that up with the makers of Outrageous Fortune?

    Also, Ross's definition of "polite" is... interesting.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report Reply

  • Ross Mason,

    Also, Ross's definition of "polite" is... interesting.

    Aww shucks Ems. Ta. ;-)

    Upper Hutt • Since Jun 2007 • 1590 posts Report Reply

  • Isabel Hitchings,

    Who saw tonight's episode of QI (Yes I know all the cool kids had if from friends in the UK years ago) where they mentioned John Lennon's disappearing ciggie on the cover of Abby Road? (also the image of David Tennant in red velvet is going to linger behind my eyelids for a while)

    I see a world of difference between asking today's film makers to consider carefully how they depict smoking (probably a good thing) and revising images from a time when smoking was regarded rather differently. Doctoring either artworks or images of real people is just dishonest and really doesn't sit well with me.

    Christchurch • Since Jul 2007 • 719 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson,

    Lucy, are you saying that there would be no cigarette smoking in film and TV unless the tobacco industry directly pay for it to be there?

    I thought that too until a careful reread of Lucy's words. I missed the 'just' in the piece you quoted first time too.

    Is anyone saying depiction of smoking should be banned? I understand the push to be toward R rating it, in much the same way as graphic violence and sex. Ross only said he'd be 'happy' if no images were shown, but knew it was an unrealistic ask.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • Emma Hart,

    Is anyone saying depiction of smoking should be banned? I understand the push to be toward R rating it, in much the same way as graphic violence and sex.

    The WHO guidelines I quoted in the article re: internet depictions of smoking are about totally preventing access, which would create an interesting situation where you could legally watch somethng on television but not on the net.

    I honestly don't think an R rating is reasonable. That is, as you say, for graphic sex and violence. A PG13, or a warning before a program plays that it contains smoking wouldn't bother me too much.

    I thought that too until a careful reread of Lucy's words.

    That is pretty much why I asked Lucy to re-state, so we could get a clearer idea there. Product placement is endemic in US TV particularly ("Oh my god, is that the new Porsche Cayenne?") so I'd be very surprised if tobacco companies weren't doing it too. I'd just struggle to believe that anything like Mad Men or Outrageous Fortune which depicts a smoking culture is only, or indeed primarily, doing it because of pressure from the tobacco industry. Of course, I still regularly see people saying that Mad Men "glamourises drinking" which is... something I can't really understand, unless "glamourises" means "shows".

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report Reply

  • Emma Hart,

    (also the image of David Tennant in red velvet is going to linger behind my eyelids for a while)

    That is a smoking jacket.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report Reply

  • Lucy Stewart,

    Product placement is endemic in US TV particularly ("Oh my god, is that the new Porsche Cayenne?") so I'd be very surprised if tobacco companies weren't doing it too.

    I like to play a game with US-made media: spot the PC. You come up with the odd surprising alternative company (and also some hilarious times that Apple have paid to be in there but the makers have clearly just stuck an Apple sticker on a non-Apple laptop because the logo is the wrong way round.)

    Also, I think there's a fine line between product placement and reality - in reality people *do* drink Coke and *do* eat McDonald's. If it's the whole perfectly placed logo to face the camera thing, yeah - but do we say that it's not OK to have any recognisable brand in there, regardless of its use in real life? Where's the line?

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    And furthermore, I get seriously f'd off by what are, in effect, a bunch of bullshit excuses made for the tobacco industry.

    @Lucy Telfar Barnard. When I start shilling for tobacco companies - or anyone else - rest assured you'll know about it. Until then, I don't really appreciate what is, in effect, a bingo card man-splain.

    Do you really think the logic of "Mad Men/Desperately Seeking Susan/BSG didn't make me want to smoke" means that smoking in film isn't a means of advertising....

    *sigh* I'd actually do BSG's executive producer/head writer Ron Moore the courtesy of assuming that he's telling the truth when he says that Kara 'Starbuck' Thrace smokes (and drinks a lot and fucks even more) as a shout out to the original. And anyone who thinks co-dependent alcoholic fuck-ups Saul and Ellen Tigh make drinking look cool and sexy are not watching the same show I am. If that was paid product placement by the liquor industry, I'd be demanding my money back.

    But my point is that I'm much more interested in the context than the depiction itself. Since I don't believe all children are clinically psychotic, I'd need a lot of convincing there's a straight line causual relationship between watching a Roadrunner cartoon and flinging yourself off a cliff. Nor have I noticed any spike in teen suicide pacts or youth gang violence in Auckland triggered by ATC's excellent production of Romeo and Juliet that closed a few weeks back.

    BTW, for product placement to work don't you need an identifiable brand? James Bond drives an Aston Martin DBS V12, and apparently MI6 has a sweetheart deal with Sony which supplied its cellphones, laptops and big screen monitors. About the only named brand of cigarettes I remember in recent films is the entirely ficticious 'Red Apples' that only exist in the Tarantino-verse.

    Is anyone saying depiction of smoking should be banned?

    I'll have to hunt down a reference, but IIRC ASH has done exactly that.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    And just to take it to the reductio ad absurdum, instant R rating for Gavin and Stacy anyone? We all knows that there's an obesity epidemic out there, and what kind of message are we sending when fatties like James Corden and Ruth Jones are normalizing bad life style choices that directly contribute to chronic illness and death every year? Nay, even glamorising them as they play the staunch best friends of the title characters.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • George Darroch,

    BTW, for product placement to work don't you need an identifiable brand?

    I watched In a Lonely Place tonight. A great film, with cracking dialog, sardonic leads, faces that could melt or freeze hearts (often within the same scene), and a lit cigarette about every two minutes.

    I don't know that anyone was paying them to do so, but the filmmakers had every intention of linking glamour and sex with the cigarette. I've been Emma's kind of smoker in the past, and if I didn't have a firm intention not to smoke, the message might have been effective. I certainly watch Mad Men and feel like making gin-based cocktails.

    WLG • Since Nov 2006 • 2264 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson,

    I'd just struggle to believe that anything like Mad Men or Outrageous Fortune which depicts a smoking culture is only, or indeed primarily, doing it because of pressure from the tobacco industry.

    Yes, there's work needed to prove any conspiratorial link there.

    Overall, I agree. I don't watch TV to be preached at, period. I'll see how I feel about it when the kids get to an impressionable age, but I heartily agreed with Danielle that Cookie Monster should still be allowed to do his thing. It's not on Sesame Street if I give them open access to cookies, and they get fat.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • Ian Dalziel,

    Stout Hibernian stock...

    also the image of David Tennant in red velvet is going to linger behind my eyelids for a while

    Tennant's Red Velvet now there's a Boutique Beer just waiting to happen...


    ya can't hold a candle to Chandler...

    The Big Sleep.
    Favourite movie of all time, quite possibly.
    Dr Haywood ensured my undying devotion
    by giving me a copy of the book.

    You're gonna love The Lung Goodbye
    and The Little Cyster then...

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 7953 posts Report Reply

  • giovanni tiso,

    Not to mention Phlegm, My Lovely

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report Reply

  • Lucy Telfar Barnard,

    I am not saying that all depiction of smoking in film/TV is paid for by tobacco companies. Some of the advertising they get for free instead.

    I've been thinking about the difference between the depiction tobacco use, and the depiction of alcohol and violence in film. I think the difference is that (most of) the effects of binge drinking and violence are immediate, so if they are portrayed in film we also get to see the consequences - and they're rarely pretty. Even alcoholism is generally portrayed as the tragedy it is.

    With smoking, however, the effects (immediate or otherwise) are largely invisible. Unfortunately I've only seen the first series of Outrageous Fortune (on video - yeah, yeah, I know I'm a baby 'cos I go to bed at 9.30), and that was a while ago, so forgive me if I make some assumptions, but for it to show the likely consequences - Cheryl eventually contracting emphysema, perhaps attempting to smoke through her breathing tube (always painful to watch), and/or followed by lung cancer and an unpleasant death, would mean making the show about something it's not.

    So with (unhealthy) drinking and violence in film, you get to see the adverse consequences. With smoking (always unhealthy), you don't.

    BTW, for product placement to work don't you need an identifiable brand?

    Not if the product is the brand. Tobacco companies are a cartel. While there may be some competition amongst them for market share, they're very capable of banding together in common interest, and their common interest is continuing to addict people to a lethal product (see, for example, their recent united stance against plain packaging in Australia).

    I did not mean to imply that any of those particular examples (Mad Men/Desperately Seeking Susan/BSG) I listed had been paid for by the tobacco industry, since I have no way of telling which ones are paid for and which aren't (a problem all on its own). I listed them because they were examples that other people had given of smoking on screen that hadn't made them take up smoking, and I wanted to point out the falsity of that argument.

    Just for clarity, my views are:
    - some (not all) tobacco use on screen is sponsored by tobacco companies;
    - all on-screen tobacco use normalises smoking;
    - most on-screen tobacco use functions as tobacco advertising, whether tobacco companies have paid for it or not;
    - as with other advertising, on-screen tobacco advertising has greater and lesser degrees of success.

    Do I think on-screen smoking should be banned? Generally not. R-rated? Probably, in the same way that the depiction of heroin use is R-rated.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 585 posts Report Reply

  • Rich Lock,

    After having a very civil drinking disagreement with someone recently over Holmes's cocaine use, I came home and picked up my copy of Adventures, flipped it open, and the cocaine is mentioned on the first page (A Scandal in Bohemia):

    Holmes, who loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings in Baker Street, buried among his old books, and alternating from week to week between cocaine and ambition, the drowsiness of the drug, and the fierce energy of his own keen nature.

    That I think indicates that, however often the word is mentioned, the drug use is habitual.

    Emma, if you want to crush your friend and leave them weeping on the floor about how wrong they were, then let the sign of four be your weapon of choice:

    Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantelpiece, and his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case. With his long, white, nervous fingers he adjusted the delicate needle and rolled back his left shirtcuff. For some little time his eyes rested thoughtfully upon the sinewy forearm and wrist, all dotted and scarred with innumerable puncture-marks. Finally, he thrust the sharp point home, pressed down the tiny piston, and sank back into the velvet-lined armchair with a long sigh of satisfaction.

    Three times a day for many months I had witnessed this performance, but custom had not reconciled my mind to it. On the contrary, from day to day I had become more irritable at the sight, and my conscience swelled nightly within me at the thought that I had lacked the courage to protest. Again and again I had registered a vow that I should deliver my soul upon the subject; but there was that in the cool, nonchalant air of my companion which made him the last man with whom one would care to take anything approaching to a liberty. His great powers, his masterly manner, and the experience which I had had of his many extraordinary qualities, all made me diffident and backward in crossing him.

    Yet upon that afternoon, whether it was the Beaune which I had taken with my lunch or the additional exasperation produced by the extreme deliberation of his manner, I suddenly felt that I could hold out no longer.

    "Which is it to-day," I asked, "morphine or cocaine?"

    He raised his eyes languidly from the old black-letter volume which he had opened.

    "It is cocaine," he said, "a seven-per-cent solution. Would you care to try it?"

    "No, indeed," I answered brusquely. "My constitution has not got over the Afghan campaign yet. I cannot afford to throw any extra strain upon it."

    He smiled at my vehemence. "Perhaps you are right, Watson," he said. "I suppose that its influence is physically a bad one. I find it, however, so transcendently stimulating and clarifying to the mind that its secondary action is a matter of small moment."

    back in the mother countr… • Since Feb 2007 • 2728 posts Report Reply

  • Geoff Lealand,

    I did read somewhere recently that all the smoking in Mad Men is herbal cigarettes (dock leaves, anyone?). Not sure whether that makes it better or worse.

    Screen & Media Studies, U… • Since Oct 2007 • 2562 posts Report Reply

  • giovanni tiso,

    So with (unhealthy) drinking and violence in film, you get to see the adverse consequences. With smoking (always unhealthy), you don't.

    Yes, the always terrible consequences of violence in film. Like, say, Karate Kid, or The Matrix, or Kung Fu Panda, powerful indictments against brutality that they are. Or Charles Bronson's films, etc.

    - all on-screen tobacco use normalises smoking;

    What does that even mean? Is smoking abnormal? Are my parents abnormal persons? I don't think so. Smoking is normal. A minor vice with a not insignificant overall cost to society and occasionally fatal consequences for the individual, yes. But abnormal?

    You know what else kills a lot of people? Driving cars. Should we ban those from films?

    Besides, who says that fictions have to always depict what is normal, be true to life? Do we ask that the laws of physics always apply in films? And why should the laws of medicine?

    I also think if you go down that road it's pretty hard to stop. Let's say you ban vice for films, should you then enforce virtues? Why not demand that every male and female lead in films be shown to be a keen jogger?

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report Reply

  • Ian Dalziel,

    Viscous wit...

    Phlegm, My Lovely

    The humour is strong in this one...

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 7953 posts Report Reply

  • Andrew Stevenson,

    Minor case of life imitating art
    In the book "Remake" by Connie Willis, the main character's job is to edit old films to remove/replace props (ie alcohol or tobacco) or people depending on the latest court case.
    I wonder if this is where they got the idea from?

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 206 posts Report Reply

  • Emma Hart,

    In the book "Remake" by Connie Willis

    Andrew, in early draft I removed a paragraph from this column about Connie Willis's Bellwether, a book I like to push with an almost missionary zeal. Read Bellwether, it's awesome.

    It's mostly about a woman who researches trends, trying to find out what causes hula hoops or bobbed hair to suddenly and briefly become madly popular. But it's also about a woman who, for spoilery reasons, goes into workplaces and makes herself a pariah in whatever way works best in the society. She smokes, as the easiest and clearest way to get her co-workers to treat her like shit.

    - all on-screen tobacco use normalises smoking;

    Surely it only normalises smoking if you see more of it in movies than you do wandering around the streets. Otherwise it's just showing something people actually do.

    Also, having every incidence of smoking followed by a negative consequence of smoking would be completely unrealistic. There was a Jack Nicholson movie that I can't now remember the name of which received an R rating for showing two middle-aged people having a joint, and then giggling. No negative consequences shown for drug use. And who's ever had a joint and giggled, that's ridiculous. They should be... actually, I can't remember what the negative consequences of marijuana are. Is that one of them?

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report Reply

  • Lucy Telfar Barnard,

    Yes, the always terrible consequences of violence in film. Like, say, Karate Kid, or The Matrix, or Kung Fu Panda, powerful indictments against brutality that they are. Or Charles Bronson's films, etc.

    Okay fair point. And how many times do you remember seeing kids in the playground imitating the Karate Kid crane pose? Lots. So I'll have to think about that one a bit more.

    Is smoking abnormal? Are my parents abnormal persons? I don't think so. Smoking is normal. A minor vice with a not insignificant overall cost to society and occasionally fatal consequences for the individual, yes. But abnormal?

    You're misunderstanding the meaning of "normalise", which is to bring towards the mean, or average. Most people don't smoke, so by that definition, smoking is not normal.

    You know what else kills a lot of people? Driving cars. Should we ban those from films?

    Poor argument. Death from motor vehicles results from using them in a way that was not intended, or from unskilled use. Death from tobacco use results from using it exactly as intended.

    Also, road deaths per year: about 400; tobacco deaths per year: about 5000. Bit of a difference in scale there.

    And again, the UofO medical researchers are not calling for tobacco use to be banned in film. They're asking for it to be removed from YouTube, because on YouTube there is no effective enforcement for R-rating, or 8.30/9.30 watershed.

    Besides, who says that fictions have to always depict what is normal, be true to life? Do we ask that the laws of physics always apply in films? And why should the laws of medicine?

    I'm not saying that fiction has to depict what is normal. That would be dull. I'm saying that if it does include tobacco use it should probably carry an R-rating.

    I also think if you go down that road it's pretty hard to stop. Let's say you ban vice for films, should you then enforce virtues? Why not demand that every male and female lead in films be shown to be a keen jogger?

    Who's saying all vice in films should be banned? Not me.

    Just to change tack a bit, I'm now trying to think of any films/TV shows on before 9.30 (when alcohol advertising is allowed) that do regularly show tobacco use. I mean, how many films would actually become R-rated only because they had smoking in them, and not for their other content?

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 585 posts Report Reply

First ←Older Page 1 2 3 4 5 8 Newer→ Last

Post your response…

Please sign in using your Public Address credentials…

Login

You may also create an account or retrieve your password.