Tobacco Use In Movies Research Articles

The use of tobacco in online trailers of top-grossing movies.

INTRODUCTIONImages of tobacco use in movies have been studied extensively, showing that smoking in movies can cause the initiation of smoking among young people. Tobacco use in movie trailers, however, has not been monitored to the extent of full-length films. As such, the purpose of this study was to assess how many online trailers from top-grossing movies contain images of tobacco use, and to estimate audience exposure to those depictions.METHODSA total of 964 trailers from the top-grossing movies of 2010–16 were located on YouTube and analyzed for the number of tobacco ‘incidents’ (tobacco went off screen and on screen, a different actor had tobacco, or a new scene contained tobacco). Audience exposure was measured through ‘impressions’, by multiplying each trailer’s number of incidents by the number of times the trailer was viewed.RESULTSFrom 2010 to 2016, the trailers from top-grossing movies increased in: total per cent of tobacco incidents (16% in 2010 vs 21% in 2016), total number of incidents (69 in 2010 vs 102 in 2016), and tobacco impressions (89 million in 2010 vs 725 million in 2016).CONCLUSIONSA considerable number of online movie trailers contain incidents of tobacco use, with a noteworthy exposure to those incidents. As such, tobacco use in movie trailers should be monitored to the same extent as full-length movies, and public health professionals should advocate for age-verification restrictions to movie trailers that contain tobacco incidents and that anti-smoking advertisements be shown before trailers containing any incidents.

Tobacco Use in Top-Grossing Movies - United States, 2010-2016.

The Surgeon General has concluded that there is a causal relationship between depictions of smoking in the movies and the initiation of smoking among young persons (1). The more youths see smoking on screen, the more likely they are to start smoking; youths who are heavily exposed to onscreen smoking imagery are approximately two to three times as likely to begin smoking as are youths who receive less exposure (1,2). A Healthy People 2020 objective is to reduce the proportion of youths exposed to onscreen tobacco marketing in movies and television (Tobacco Use Objective 18.3) (3). To assess the recent extent of tobacco use imagery in youth-rated movies (G, PG, PG-13*), 2010-2016 data from Thumbs Up! Thumbs Down! (TUTD), a project of Breathe California of Sacramento-Emigrant Trails were analyzed and compared with previous reports.† In 2016, 41% of movies that were among the 10 top-grossing movies in any calendar week included tobacco use, compared with 45% in 2010. Among youth-rated movies, 26% included tobacco use in 2016 (including 35% of PG-13 movies) compared with 31% in 2010 (including 43% of PG-13 movies). The steady decline in the number of tobacco incidents in youth-rated movies from 2005-2010 stopped after 2010. The total number of individual occurrences of tobacco use in a movie (tobacco incidents) in top-grossing movies increased 72%, from 1,824 in 2010 to 3,145 in 2016, with an increase of 43% (from 564 to 809) occurring among PG-13 rated movies. Reducing tobacco use in youth-related movies could help prevent the initiation of tobacco use among young persons.

Out smoking on the big screen: tobacco use in LGBT movies, 2000–2011

ObjectiveLesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people have significantly higher smoking prevalence than heterosexual people in the USA. The reasons for this disparity remain unclear. Tobacco use in movies has...

Smoking in Movies: A New Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Core Surveillance Indicator

Youth who are heavily exposed to onscreen smoking are approximately 2 to 3 times as likely to begin smoking as youth who are lightly exposed (1), and the Surgeon General concluded that there is a causal relationship between depictions of smoking in the movies and smoking initiation among young people (2). Among the 3 major motion picture companies with policies aimed at reducing tobacco-use incidents in their movies, the number of onscreen incidents per youth-rated movie (rated G, PG, or PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America) decreased 95.8% from 2005 through 2010 (3). These results appeared to indicate that movie companies were making progress at reducing smoking depictions in youth-oriented movies and that a company-by-company approach of adopting voluntary policies could be effective in nearly eliminating youth exposure to tobacco imagery in movies. However, new data from 2011 published by Glantz and colleagues (4) in Preventing Chronic Disease raise serious concerns about this individual company approach. Glantz and colleagues found that in 2011, depictions of tobacco use per youth-rated movie rebounded; estimated instances of tobacco use in 2011 were more than one-third higher than in 2010 (4). Furthermore, the authors found that the largest increase in tobacco-use incidents in youth-rated movies was among the 3 movie companies that had produced the dramatic decline from 1995 through 2010 and had policies designed to discourage depictions of smoking in their movies. As a result of this sharp rebound, the difference in tobacco-use incidents per youth-rated movie between companies with policies and companies without policies diminished in 2011 (4). This difference suggests that individual company policies may not be sufficient to sustain a reduction in youth exposure to tobacco-use and other pro-tobacco imagery in movies and that more formal, industry-wide policies are needed. The World Health Organization and other public health groups have recommended formal policies aimed at eliminating smoking in the movies (5,6). These policies include awarding an R rating to any movie with smoking or other tobacco-use imagery (with exceptions for portrayal of actual historical figures who smoked or the portrayal of negative effects of tobacco use), certifying that no payments have been received by studios for depicting tobacco use in movies, and ending the onscreen depiction of real tobacco brands. Reducing smoking and tobacco use in youth-oriented movies is not a niche issue. The Surgeon General has concluded that there is a causal relationship between depictions of smoking in movies and smoking initiation among young people, and the US Department of Health and Human Services has set a goal of reducing youth exposure to onscreen smoking (7). Furthermore, among the nationwide goals set by Healthy People 2020, one of the objectives is the reduction of onscreen tobacco use imagery in youth-oriented movies and on television (8). These goals and objectives were set because the population-attributable risk associated with onscreen tobacco imagery is significant (9,10). To assess progress toward the Healthy People 2020 objective, the Office on Smoking and Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will now track and report annually on tobacco use imagery in youth-oriented movies as a core surveillance indicator by using the methods described in previous CDC publications (3,4). These data will be added to regular CDC reports to the public on smoking prevalence among youth and adults, total and per-capita cigarette consumption, and progress on tobacco control policies. One of the major conclusions in the Surgeon General’s 2012 report on preventing tobacco use (2) was that after years of steady progress, declines in tobacco use by youth and young adults have slowed for cigarette smoking and have stalled for smokeless tobacco use (2). Each day in the United States, approximately 3,800 young people younger than 18 years smoke their first cigarette, and approximately 1,000 youth younger than 18 years become daily cigarette smokers (2). More than one-third of these smokers will eventually suffer and die from smoking-related illness. We all have a responsibility to prevent youth from becoming tobacco users, and the movie industry has a responsibility to protect our youth from exposure to tobacco use and other pro-tobacco imagery in movies that are produced and rated as appropriate for children and adolescents. Eliminating tobacco imagery in movies is an important step that should be easy to take.

Tobacco use in Bollywood movies, tobacco promotional activities and their association with tobacco use among Indian adolescents

BackgroundSmoking in Hollywood movies is a known risk factor for teen smoking in the USA and Europe, but little is known about the association between exposure to tobacco use in...

Televised Movie Trailers

To determine the proportion of televised movie trailers that included images of tobacco use during 1 year and the extent of youth exposure to those trailers. Content analysis combined with Nielsen data measuring media exposure. All movie trailers (N = 216) shown on television from August 1, 2001, through July 31, 2002. Exposure among youth aged 12 to 17 years to televised movie trailers that included smoking imagery. Of the movie trailers televised during the study period, 14.4% (31 trailers) included images of tobacco use. Tobacco use was shown in 24.0% of the 23 trailers for R-rated (restricted) movies and 7.5% of the 8 trailers for PG-13- and PG-rated (parental guidance) movies. Ninety-five percent of all youth aged 12 to 17 years in the United States saw at least 1 movie trailer depicting tobacco use on television during this 1 year, and 88.8% saw at least 1 of these trailers 3 or more times. Nearly all US youth aged 12 to 17 years were exposed to images of tobacco use on television in the context of a movie trailer during the study period. Given the relationship between youth exposure to tobacco use in movies and smoking initiation, the public health community should work to enact policy to reduce or eliminate the influence of tobacco use in televised movie trailers.

The Incidence and Context of Tobacco Use in Popular Movies from 1988 to 1997

Objective. The aim of this study was to describe tobacco use in a large representative sample of movies.Methods. We analyzed the content of the top 25 box office hits per year from 1988 to 1997. Outcomes included the number of occurrences of tobacco use, the time tobacco use appeared on screen, the context in which tobacco use was portrayed, and characteristics of smokers compared with nonsmokers.Results. Eighty-seven percent of the movies portrayed tobacco use, with a median of 5 occurrences per film. Tobacco use was not related to year of release or box office success of the movie. R-rated movies had the greatest number of occurrences (median = 8.5; P < 0.05) and were most likely to feature major characters using tobacco (81%, P < 0.001). Among major characters, males were more likely to use tobacco than females (28% vs 17%, P < 0.001), but there was no difference in the prevalence of tobacco use by age, race, or socioeconomic status. Tobacco users were typically adults (96.3%) who were more likely to engage in a variety of other risk behaviors. Most tobacco use involved cigarettes or cigars (89.5%). Motivations for on-screen smoking included agitation (20.1%), sadness (5.1%), happiness (15.3%), and relaxation (17.1%). Characters were often shown smoking while confiding in others (30.7%) or in social/celebratory situations (18.0%). Negative reactions to tobacco use were rarely shown (5.9%) and negative consequences resulting from tobacco use were depicted for only 3.4% of the major characters who used tobacco.Conclusion. Despite increasing anti-smoking sentiments in our society, negative reactions to smoking are rare and there is no evidence that tobacco use in movies has declined over the past decade. Movies continue to model smoking as a socially acceptable behavior and portray it as both a way to relieve tension and something to do while socializing. By depicting positive images of tobacco use, movies have the potential to influence adolescent smoking behavior as much as any other environmental exposure, such as family or friend smoking.

Viewing tobacco use in movies: Does it shape attitudes that mediate adolescent smoking?

Background: Social cognitive theory posits that children develop intentions and positive expectations (utilities) about smoking prior to initiation. These attitudes and values result, in part, from observing others modeling the behavior. This study examines, for the first time, the association between viewing tobacco use in movies and attitudes toward smoking among children who have never smoked a cigarette. Design/ Setting: Cross-sectional school-based survey was used among randomly selected Vermont and New Hampshire middle schools. The sample consisted of 3766 middle school students (grades 5–8). The sample was primarily white and equally distributed by gender. The primary exposure was number of movie tobacco-use occurrences viewed. We first counted occurrences of tobacco use in each of 601 recent popular motion pictures. Each student was asked to select movies they had seen from a random subset of 50 movies. Based on movies the adolescent had seen, movie tobacco-use occurrences were summed to determine exposure.The outcome was susceptibility to smoking, positive expectations, and perceptions of smoking as normative behavior for adolescents or adults. Results: The movies in this sample contained a median of five occurrences of tobacco use (interquartile range=1, 12). The typical adolescent never-smoker had viewed 15 of the 50 movies on his/her list. From movies adolescents reported seeing, exposure to movie tobacco-use occurrences varied widely: median=80, and interquartile range 44 to 136. The prevalence of susceptibility to smoking increased with higher categories of exposure: 16% among students who viewed 0 to 50 movie tobacco occurrences; 21% (51 to 100); 28% (101 to 150); and 36% (>150). The association remained statistically significant after controlling for gender, grade in school, school performance, school, friend, sibling and parent smoking, sensation-seeking, rebelliousness, and self-esteem. Compared with adolescents exposed to ≤50 occurrences of tobacco use, the adjusted odds ratio of susceptibility to smoking for each higher category was 1.2 (95% confidence interval 0.9, 1.5), 1.4 (1.1, 1.9), and 1.6 (1.3, 2.1), respectively. Similarly, higher exposure to tobacco use in movies significantly increased the number of positive expectations endorsed by the adolescent and the perception that most adults smoke, but not the perception that most peers smoke. Conclusions: This study provides empirical evidence that viewing movie depictions of tobacco use is associated with higher receptivity to smoking prior to trying the behavior.

Hollywood on tobacco: how the entertainment industry understands tobacco portrayal

OBJECTIVETo determine how people in the California-based entertainment industry think about the portrayal of tobacco use in movies and on television. Specifically, to explore who decides when to include tobacco...