While the television industry voluntarily removed cigarette advertising from the airwaves and networks which cater to teens like MTV frown on videos with smoking, Hollywood movies are grossly behind the learning curve. The use of harsh, sexually derived profanity or depictions of drug use exclude a film from a G-rating. Cigarettes are legal. You can take your child to the park and see people smoking. But few children at the local park will see Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, or Julia Roberts seductively lighting up.
Sure smoking is legal, but so is saying the 'f' word.
According to Taylor, the MPAA has no plans to visit the smoking issue, despite the fact that numerous studies reveal motion pictures may bear some of the responsibility for underage cigarette use because smoking in movies is so pervasive. This distorted portrait of the incidence of smoking leads kids to believe that everybody's doing it, when in fact smoking is decreasing in every other age group. Smoke alarm Perhaps even more unsettling than the epidemic of cinematic cigarette consumption is the fact that Hollywood and the MPAA regard the issue as insubstantial. Yet there's disagreement even among A-list directors. Michael Mann, who directed The Insider about tobacco industry whistle-blower Jeffrey Wigand, believes that little or no restrictions should be placed on filmmakers.