"No person or entity associated with this film received payment or anything of value, or…

I remember it got a lot more interesting riding or driving through the Auckland university district after the place was fully iPodestrianised.

Time for the London approach to prevent texting injuries:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=807vebt-mmQ

[Warning: this video is to be taken by a grain or three of salt, a point apparently missed…

Warning:Your DNA are belong to us

Warning:Ur Txts also r belong to us

A search of stuff.co.nz (with default safe search on) reveals 698 articles with the word 'warning' compared to 629 articles with the name 'New Zealand'.

*Excluding the select few, whose job it is to remove anything resembling life from all art forms.

[Warning this post contains American English, questionable grammar and unprovoked punctuation]

[Apologies:…

But politicians around the world are calling foul on the proliferation of unrealistic images, particularly in fashion and celebrity media. UK Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone wants a health warning on airbrushed photographs, telling viewers they are not real. French MP Valerie Boyer is advocating the same move in France.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=10671260…

No. That's not what I am saying. I am saying that, if you believe that for reasons of social acceptability* you shouldn't show say, rape, even when entirely historically justified, in certain kinds of film, then I don't think you can object to a similar refusal to show smoking,

Is…

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.

It would feel strange to me that on the way to the theatre…

So you're saying that there is a parallel between the change in society attitudes towards both rape and smoking, and since it's not morally acceptable to show rape at 7:30 (or in a G movie) we therefore shouldn't show smoking?

No. That's not what I am saying. I am saying…

But the pertinent thing, that rape was socially acceptable in certain circumstances and here and now isn't, and that that has very similar implications for historic depictions as any other change in social acceptability is, I think, sound.

So you're saying that there is a parallel between the change in…

Oh, I have a stupider reason for starting smoking. I did it to get my lungs used to smoke so I could smoke joints without choking and looking like a total loser.

I don't remember how I started smoking, but I remember why — it was fucking wonderful, like being…

fig leaves!

If you – blot out?Make the shots smoke& dissolve? Turn ciggies into daffodils? Re-shoot entire films???
How actually do you remove the tobacco-smoking from reallly seminal films?

Fig-leaving is not…

I think people will look back on these decades of anti-smoking obsession in the…

I will insist tho' that smoking in rural areas of the West Coast isnt a huge problem, but drinking alcohol is (with consquent avoidable vehicle accidents...)

Re Jackie & Emma's remarks above –

love…

You, madam, are a goddess.

Pff, it's a necessity, you can't buy bread. And at least we have the power to cook it. We have been so, so lucky. It's still hitting me, what's happened to my city.

I think the problem (that is to say, I made this mistake) is confusing `morally acceptable to show' and `morally acceptable to show at a given time'.

Two and a Half Men plays alcoholism for laughs at 7:30. Why are realistic portrayals of smoking relatively unacceptable at that time?

Is…

That, Emma, is actually quite a good reason. And let's face it, faced with what you are all going through in Chch, a cigarette can only be a reassuring thing. As would be a joint.

I haven't had time to sit down for a cigarette yet, Jackie. After I get…

I know it's a stupid habit, made stupider by the fact that I started in my early 20's just to look cool.

Oh, I have a stupider reason for starting smoking. I did it to get my lungs used to smoke so I could smoke joints without choking and looking…

Really? Smoking is on par with rape in terms of what's morally acceptable?

Obviously not. It is however a thing that has been a lot more socially acceptable in other places than it is now (thank god).

Second-hand smoke is not really the issue for me; it is the pong of smoke-saturated clothing or furnishings.

Now Geoff, please to inform me but, don't you, your attire and your furnishings ever wash? I mean once you get home after that social eventful night before.

Indeed, I prefer the…

, 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.

Only on page 1, bit slow I know, but…

superior snide person

Come, come, Islander. This has been civilized all round. This snide field is nine miles wide, you have to search hard for a peck of snide.

It is a rather dramatic analogy, but I think it is fair.

Really? Smoking is on par with rape in terms of what's morally acceptable?

Similarly, if I was trying to give up smoking, I might want to avoid a super-smoky movie.

Would you also wish to avoid a super-smoky book?80

I think that's quite defensible --- racist films remain racist, no matter if when they were made they expressed acceptable social attitudes. In terms of representations of historical truth, again, there are a great many historic truths we nowadays won't have on the television.

Okay, but if you make a…

I am sorry about making assumptions. It annoys me intensely when other people do it, and…

1. you said "rural areas", not "the Coast" (I assume you mean West, rather than East?), so I was talking about NZ rural areas in general – where tobacco use is on average higher than in urban areas.
2. I thought you were talking about how the ratio between…

But here's the thing. People do shit that is bad for them. Whether that's smoking, eating too much, drinking too much, shagging inappropriate people, or getting into fights. Blowing shit up or taking illegal drugs. Or whatever your harmful behaviour of choice is.

A bunch of those would get you…

I am pretty well certain that you will find a really different imbalance when you look at rural deaths-

Deaths from traffic accidents: +/-400 per year

Deaths from traffic related pollution: +/- 1200 per year (as estimated here http://www.transport.govt.nz/research/Documents/health-effects-of-vehicle-emissions.pdf)

Again, deaths from tobacco use: +/- 5000 per year.

I'm not presumptive on the internet, and if I'm going to tell others how to behave (quite rarely), I'll do that directly.

I think that's something we can all agree on. Right?

No. In fact I think that when they started showing grisly medical pictures on cigarette packets I might have made the point that it would be like painting pictures of cars wrapped around trees on the side of vehicles -…

Dude, you're just not hanging around with the right kind of pro-cycling activitists. I've heard attitudes way more virulent than this expressed about cars.

If it was up to me, cars would be decorated like cigarette packets – much like this.

I think that's something we can all agree on.…

(I've never smoked, but I am also 12.)

I…

I wouldn't dream of smoking in my house or car, or anyone else's house or car. Gross. I used to live in a 7th-floor flat with no garden and so all…

he pissed me off big time personally (re his comments related to osteoarthritis) and for others (his truly embarrassing comments on Emma's CFS, and others in that thread.)

But – waving feelers* feebily – he does come from a scientific…

Dude, you're just not hanging around with the right kind of pro-cycling activitists.

I think my only response to that is 'thank heavens'. If I'm ever in that situation, they might have to put a warning on *me* for 'realistic violence'.

And yet no annoying busybody ever comes up to me and tells me to remove my 'cancer wagon' from the road, as they do to my outside-smoking mother.

Dude, you're just not hanging around with the right kind of pro-cycling activitists. I've heard attitudes way more virulent than this expressed…

Yes, but if we start watching it now, we'll have missed all the cool stuff in between. We need to catch up on the other seasons first.

If you do get it out, be warned, the rude sex in it can actually spread beyond the screen.

...to walk around the city at night in winter with someone white tied over their mouths.

would that be Johnny (or Edgar) Winter ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbgogmR5q7U&feature=related

or just Johnny Walker?

Leg bone connected to the butt bone...

Hopefully they take up jogging and they
go away quicker.

This [[http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/11/phys-ed-can-exercise-moderate-anger/?scp=1&sq=can%20exercise%20moderate%20anger&st=cse|exercising restraint…

back when Wellington was looking at banning smoking on footpaths (at cafes and things), I had a massive hissy fit at several co workers, pointing out that I breathe in a damn sight more cabon monoxide walking down Courtenay place from all the buses than I do from the odd…

but I don't want to even start drawing up that kind of league table for sexual abuse.

*cough* That should read "for depictions of any form of sexual or physical abuse". Really stupid to FUBAR my own argument with imprecise wording.

And Russell, Simone Horrocks is a very smart woman.…

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?

All I'm sayin' is, don't harsh my buzz.

As opposed to realistic violence, which some films carry a warning about – I suspect you're much more likely to be bashed by your partner than fall into a room full of needles.

OK, that was a fair come back to the snark. But that's where I start getting nervous…

"Contains strong horror violence" — as opposed to the romantic type that makes you want to run out and French kiss kittens?

As opposed to realistic violence, which some films carry a warning about – I suspect you're much more likely to be bashed by your partner than fall into…

What is the job of a film rating, on the other hand? Simply to point out that certain parts of a given film may be objectionable for certain reasons

And some of the notes the MPAA attach to their ratings are Dada haiku of offensive desire to avoid offending anyone.…

Smoking in a movie has never made me want to smoke, simply because I pretty much always want to smoke. It might remind me that I want to smoke, but that urge is always there. I imagine it's the same for alcoholics and drug…

Needn't be limited to sex & drugs, either. I'd rather have known, for example, that a recent otherwise incredibly excellent movie contained a gruesome scene involving a corpse. Similarly, if I was trying to give up smoking, I might want to avoid a super-smoky movie.

I'm constantly outraged that shock ads…

Let's name our nannyism. I'd ban advertising of all things to children under the age of, say, 12, and ban advertising of things that cause harm to people other than the direct consumer – so alcohol and yes, cigarettes as well on account of the second-hand smoke thing.

I can't…

what's the job of art? Is it to present an aspirational and respirational ideal, or to accurately reflect the world we live in?

Oh but art doesn't have a job. So bourgeois! Art's on the creative dole, mining and moulding our collective subconscious while lying on the couch being clever.…

I would like some way of getting all the people who are rudely confrontational to outdoor smokers

Um, yes.. On a trip on Australia, there was a very nasty gent who apparently objected to us smoking four large tables away from him on a huge outside terrace that was a…

Outrageous Fortune is currently airing at 8:30.

Yes, but if we start watching it now, we'll have missed all the cool stuff in between. We need to catch up on the other seasons…

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.

Outrageous Fortune is currently airing at 8:30. As Russell mentioned in the Media7 discussion last night, Robyn Malcolm insisted that Cheryl…

One of the wonderful side effects of the social discouragement of smoking is it gives justification to those that wish to be rude, arrogant, opinionated fuckers. Hopefully they take up jogging and they go away quicker.

And the annoying thing is, blowing smoke directly into their face seldom makes them…

But here's the thing. People do shit that is bad for them. Whether that's smoking, eating too much, drinking too much, shagging inappropriate people, or getting into fights.…

Most people don't smoke, so by that definition, smoking is not normal.

*head-desk* Redacted original comment until I can get Mister Grumpy on the first bus out of town.

And yet no annoying busybody ever comes up to me and tells me to remove my 'cancer wagon' from the road, as they do to my outside-smoking mother.

back when Wellington was looking at banning smoking on footpaths (at cafes and things), I had a massive hissy fit at several…

pollution is a major killer and cars are a major cause of pollution

And yet no annoying busybody ever comes up to me and tells me to remove my 'cancer wagon' from the road, as they do to my outside-smoking mother.

Why not demand that every male and female lead in films be shown to be a keen jogger?

Ashby II: Electric Joggaloo

Stalin, Hitler and Mao would have been early mentors...

Wait, did you just associate anti-tobacco compaigners with Hitler? Well, I guess this thread's over then.

(And yes, I'm well aware that Hitler was anti-tobacco, and you can bet tobacco companies use that to their best advantage too).

Even if it's…

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.

I would personally beg you not to. I don't want to see violence moved to a late…

...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?

Stalin, Hitler and Mao would have been early mentors...
...or Woody Allen…

Also, having every incidence of smoking followed by a negative consequence of smoking would be completely unrealistic.

I don't know about unrealistic, but certainly not feasible within the scope of most plot arcs. But that's my point. It's because there's generally no feasible way of showing the negative consequences that…

Read Bellwether, it's awesome.

Preachin' to to choir sister, preachin' to the choir

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…

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…

Phlegm, My Lovely

The humour is strong in this one...

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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

That is a smoking jacket.

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…

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…

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

Aww shucks Ems. Ta. ;-)

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…

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?…

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.

Don't the CDC have any actual diseases to control?

Well sure, but fortunately they've got their priorities right.

Smoking is implicated in 5,000 of NZ's 29,000 deaths a year. There's a reason smoking is called an epidemic. Of course those people would have died eventually anyway – everyone does -…

I reckon the bars have increased their bottom line immensely. Just from the cleaning bill. The (lack of) repainting too must have saved a small fortune.

My dry cleaning bill dropped through the floor and the P/WAF (Partner/Wifey Acceptance Factor) increased immensely.

Those are all reasonable points. My major concern…

And, Ross, you could cut the condescending "civilized" bullshit? From what I've seen of your average bar on a Friday night, you've nothing to be smug about.

You are dead right there on the last bit. But I did say, sit. But yeah, well, I'll take the meaning of it…

Darwin Awards of some guy who ate a lot of baked beans, got drunk, feel asleep in a small room with no windows and a closed door and actually died of his own farts

That must have been a lot of baked beans.

The reason I say this is because…

Well. About 20 something % (low end) smoke. So they tell us.

This link suggests that movies are still portraying smoking in 49% of them.

That's 49% of movies, not 49% of characters. Those numbers don't, in fact, say that movies are depicting smoking at a higher rate than in…

"All told, 51 percent of the top movies in 2009 didn’t show tobacco use at all".

Sigh... so Avatar may have been an over-produced, narratively anorexic blitzkrieg of style over substance, but at least the big blue noble savages didn't smoke!

Don't the CDC have any actual diseases to control?…

Is it to present an aspirational and respirational ideal, or to accurately reflect the world we live in?

Well. About 20 something % (low end) smoke. So they tell us.

[[Is it to present an aspirational and respirational ideal, or to accurately reflect the world we live in? | This…

The problem then will be, what do we do with all the extra people?

You need to ask?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Sp-VFBbjpE

The most well-known explanation comes from the long-ago but still lamented Mary of Fox Glacier Hotel.

She once had one of her housemaid's complain that the *ceiling* (12' stud) of a bushie's room was covered with shit.

Knowing the…

yes, appeal to Stephen Fry

Thou shalt not question Stephen Fry.

(Can anyone explain to me the mechanics of vomiting on a ten foot high ceiling without getting a drop anywhere else?)

Simple, Watson. I'm familiar with the various distances and arcs of projectile vomit from a 3 week study involving myself and my entire family and nonovirus, just ending yesterday,…

I was speculating that the next generation are going to think a hand with the first two fingers extended and slightly parted is some kind of covert symbol for something.

It is. The mystic secret number two.

Second-hand smoke is not really the issue for me; it is the pong of smoke-saturated clothing or furnishings.

Fair enough — I want to slap people who think (literally) eye-watering amounts of scent are a substitute for regular applications of soap, water and a decent deodorant. ANd the smell of…

Indeed, I prefer the aroma of a well-placed fart as the smell dissipates much more quickly.

Yes, and can be enjoyed safely in bed. Well, mostly safely – I did read in the Darwin Awards of some guy who ate a lot of baked beans, got drunk, feel asleep in…

Not to mention make many subject look like they're giving the fingers to the viewer...

I was speculating that the next generation are going to think a hand with the first two fingers extended and slightly parted is some kind of covert symbol for something.

in 'popular movies' if you smoke you're either weak-willed and neurotic

or a Chief Medical Officer ;-)

I tend to think I felt almost as refreshed as most of the smokers after those little breaks.

I don't think that 'refreshed' is the right word for most unpleasant experience for non-smokers encountering smokers is the smell. Second-hand smoke is not really the issue for me; it is the…

Mad Men never makes me feel like having a cigarette. Or a drink. It does make me want to buy clothes.

Oh, it does me. It makes me want to wear fitted dresses and drink martinis and smoke at my desk.

But I can honestly say i've never done any…

Or it may be that it was made a while ago, and was about old people.

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth...? Nah, too simple.

Here's a suitably urbane artistic rationale for banning onstage smoking in the West End (it's not the…

"However, nearly half of popular movies still contained tobacco imagery in 2009, including 54 percent of those rated PG-13, and the number of incidents remained higher in 2009 than in 1998,"

So, what's…

Or it may be that it was made a while ago, and was about old people.

No, they made quite an explicit choice to not include any references to or depiciton of cocaine use – largely, I understand, as a condition of RDJ taking the part, for obvious reasons.

Which is rather odd, because Downey's biggest critical and commercial success has been playing [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_in_a_Bottle#Films|a barely functional…

Interesting, in that it suggests Holmes uses cocaine as a downer, rather than an upper.

Yes, that's kind of where I'm going with Ritalin. His brain is portrayed as bordering on hyperactive, although not…

Interesting, in that it suggests Holmes uses cocaine as a downer, rather than an upper.

Could imagine Sherlock Holmes using Adderall nowadays – killing off his flights of genius to make him happy in the mundane world.

alternating from week to week between cocaine and ambition, the drowsiness of the drug, and the fierce energy of his own keen nature.

Interesting, in that it suggests Holmes uses cocaine as a downer, rather than an upper.

In the Guy Ritchie / RDJ version, Watsons admonishes him for experimenting with something used for "eye surgery" – which was one of the early medical uses of cocaine.

Yes, I honestly thought watching it that it was entirely obvious, but I wonder how much I read into it by…

How many times is Holmes' cocaine use referred to in the Conan Doyle books anyway?

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…

How many times is Holmes' cocaine use referred to in the Conan Doyle books anyway? My impression is it's not many,…

Cigarettes ... are sublime by virtue of their power to propose what Kant would call a "negative pleasure": a darkly beautiful, inevitably painful pleasure that arises from…

Does he even drink much in the film? He gets wine thrown in his face, that much I remember. And drinks some fine spiked wine. But other than that?

Hmmm – I was pretty sure I remembered some pointed references to alcohol, but maybe they were being deliberately vague? I…

Here, researchers at the Otago School of Medicine are calling for...

Always with the calling for something! How do you call for something anyway? Half the news on TV seems to be of someone or other calling for something. I think I'd like to call for a few things myself.…

...will there be tokin' resistance from the snuff movies?

...and there goes that Rita Angus self portrait, too...

and puff the magic dragon, will get the big C

No, they made quite an explicit choice to not include any references to or depiciton of cocaine use – largely, I understand, as a condition of RDJ taking the part, for obvious reasons.

I understand that, but there is also the implication that he was on something during those times,…

See, I did not notice that cocaine had been replaced in the Guy Ritchie film at all – I just assumed it was implied that it is what he was on when he was holed up in his office experimenting on the dog.

No, they made quite an explicit choice…

Hard to believe I know but Dad was told to smoke by a doctor in the early 80s for a chest cold so it took some time for the message to take.

In the 80s? Wow. Oddly, I was just discussing this on Twitter – last summer I had a…

not considered medicinal by anyone

Hard to believe I know but Dad was told to smoke by a doctor in the early 80s for a chest cold so it took some time for the message to take.

I can't find the 30s song I was looking for but from 47…

all three Die Hard movies (yes, I said three)

Damn straight – Die Hard 2 is a piece of crap.