The American author and columnist Fletcher Knebel famously said that "smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics" but, if the announcement of new research by the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies (UKCTCS) is anything to go by, statistics on smoking and the studies that furnish them are becoming a leading cause of a zealously cautious approach to our personal welfare.
Published by the British Medical Journal, the study recommends that films that feature smoking actors should automatically qualify for an 18 certificate because of the bad example they set our children. Under these recommendations, the least offensive of Cruella de Vil's many character faults would see Disney's 101 Dalmations given the same adult-only rating that a visceral, blood-pumping horror flick receives.
It's undoubtedly a question of perspective: while we might argue about the artistic merits of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy of blockbusters, there are some who apparently only see it as a protracted nine and a half hour advertisement for pipe tobacco. Bridget Jones's Diary comes in for some criticism also, for its heroine's devotion to the art of extracting nicotine from Silk Cut.
I can't imagine what they make of an entire canon of classic postwar movies, where unspeakably suave people wafted in and out of the frame trailed by an urbane curl of smoke. Neither can I imagine a more different scene than the al fresco tabagies that all of us – including our children – witness outside offices in fair weather and foul every day; an interesting demonstration, if one were needed, of the cigarette's fall from grace, from sophisticated to soiled, from charm to harm in less than half a century.
Then, as now, the movies were merely holding a mirror up to real life, but while those days have gone and much has changed, pretending it isn't there, as this study seems to recommend, will not make it go away.
It's part of a long trend of well-meaning, but flawed, initiatives, examples of which are many and varied. In 1999, the government's chief medical officer, Liam Donaldson, advised anyone who was concerned about eye safety during August's total solar eclipse to "stay inside, draw the curtains and watch it on TV". For the many who disregarded this nonsense and decided to take a rare opportunity to witness one of the quintessential marvels of nature outside, it was unfortunately rather cloudy; I can't help feeling that there were some who were overjoyed at the expense of everybody else's slight disappointment.
In 2006, as if to underline the basic premise that we are not to be trusted doing the simplest things, Tayside NHS Trust printed a four-page leaflet on techniques for going to the toilet under the stirring title of Good Defecation Dynamics. It followed hot on the heels of another patronising initiative – a £250,000 campaign to warn of the wild dangers of wearing carpet slippers.
Tobacco is dangerous, of course, but, its proven effects on health aside – and I speak as someone who succumbs too often to the evil weed – is it really a proportionate response to effectively censor films, or is it part of a wider and fundamentally unhealthy health campaign, one of a number of attempts to micro-manage our lives, to inflict the outcome of a monomaniacal inclination to protect us from our own foolish impulses?
Does a culture of infantilisation put us at risk of losing the knack of managing risk for ourselves and our families? I'd rather talk to my children about the dangers of smoking than pretend that it doesn't exist. I'd also like them to know, when the right time comes along, that their role models in the film and music industries, as well as those closer to home, are not squeaky-clean, that we all have our strengths and weaknesses and they are part of what makes us who we are.
Proselytising a perfect lifestyle will never work, much better to let teenagers become individuals who are marginally less prone to peer pressure (a far more persuasive influence than last night's blockbuster) and have the facts at their disposal.
• This article was commissioned after a request by Pagey. If you have a subject you would like to see covered on Comment is free, please visit the You tell us page
by Ian Vince taken from http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2011/sep/21/films-smoking-18-certificate
Published by the British Medical Journal, the study recommends that films that feature smoking actors should automatically qualify for an 18 certificate because of the bad example they set our children. Under these recommendations, the least offensive of Cruella de Vil's many character faults would see Disney's 101 Dalmations given the same adult-only rating that a visceral, blood-pumping horror flick receives.
It's undoubtedly a question of perspective: while we might argue about the artistic merits of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy of blockbusters, there are some who apparently only see it as a protracted nine and a half hour advertisement for pipe tobacco. Bridget Jones's Diary comes in for some criticism also, for its heroine's devotion to the art of extracting nicotine from Silk Cut.
I can't imagine what they make of an entire canon of classic postwar movies, where unspeakably suave people wafted in and out of the frame trailed by an urbane curl of smoke. Neither can I imagine a more different scene than the al fresco tabagies that all of us – including our children – witness outside offices in fair weather and foul every day; an interesting demonstration, if one were needed, of the cigarette's fall from grace, from sophisticated to soiled, from charm to harm in less than half a century.
Then, as now, the movies were merely holding a mirror up to real life, but while those days have gone and much has changed, pretending it isn't there, as this study seems to recommend, will not make it go away.
It's part of a long trend of well-meaning, but flawed, initiatives, examples of which are many and varied. In 1999, the government's chief medical officer, Liam Donaldson, advised anyone who was concerned about eye safety during August's total solar eclipse to "stay inside, draw the curtains and watch it on TV". For the many who disregarded this nonsense and decided to take a rare opportunity to witness one of the quintessential marvels of nature outside, it was unfortunately rather cloudy; I can't help feeling that there were some who were overjoyed at the expense of everybody else's slight disappointment.
In 2006, as if to underline the basic premise that we are not to be trusted doing the simplest things, Tayside NHS Trust printed a four-page leaflet on techniques for going to the toilet under the stirring title of Good Defecation Dynamics. It followed hot on the heels of another patronising initiative – a £250,000 campaign to warn of the wild dangers of wearing carpet slippers.
Tobacco is dangerous, of course, but, its proven effects on health aside – and I speak as someone who succumbs too often to the evil weed – is it really a proportionate response to effectively censor films, or is it part of a wider and fundamentally unhealthy health campaign, one of a number of attempts to micro-manage our lives, to inflict the outcome of a monomaniacal inclination to protect us from our own foolish impulses?
Does a culture of infantilisation put us at risk of losing the knack of managing risk for ourselves and our families? I'd rather talk to my children about the dangers of smoking than pretend that it doesn't exist. I'd also like them to know, when the right time comes along, that their role models in the film and music industries, as well as those closer to home, are not squeaky-clean, that we all have our strengths and weaknesses and they are part of what makes us who we are.
Proselytising a perfect lifestyle will never work, much better to let teenagers become individuals who are marginally less prone to peer pressure (a far more persuasive influence than last night's blockbuster) and have the facts at their disposal.
• This article was commissioned after a request by Pagey. If you have a subject you would like to see covered on Comment is free, please visit the You tell us page
by Ian Vince taken from http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2011/sep/21/films-smoking-18-certificate
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