Smoking in Movies: Implementation Status of the World Health Organization Recommendations on the Protection of Minors

Abstract

To reduce the exposure of young people to smoking scenes in films, the World Health Organization has recommended classifying films with smoking scenes as unsuitable for children and adolescents. To examine the question whether this recommendation is being implemented in Germany and the USA by comparing the ratings for films with and without smoking scenes in both countries. The selection criterion for the films was the box office result in German theaters in 2019. The 50 most successful US productions and the 50 most successful productions from Germany were content analyzed. The questions raised were: (1) how high the proportion of smoke-free films was in these two film samples, and (2) how high the proportion of films with smoking scenes was that were classified as unsuitable for young people. All films with an age rating below 16 years were considered suitable for children and adolescents. A total of 52 of the 100 films were smokefree. The rate was 64 % for US productions, compared to 40 % for German productions (p = 0.016). According to the German Self-regulatory Organization for the Cinema (FSK) rating system, 87 % of the films were suitable for young people. Overall, the proportion of smokefree films was higher for films suitable for young people than for films not suitable for young people (56 % vs. 23 %; p = 0.025). Of the 48 films with smoking, the FSK classified 79 % as suitable for minors. With regard to the age ratings for films with smoking scenes, there was no difference between the MPAA and FSK ratings for the top 50 US productions. Neither the USA nor Germany has implemented the recommendation of the World Health Organization to protect young people from smoking scenes in films in a satisfactory manner. In Germany, films with smoking scenes are largely classified as suitable for minors.