Smoking Presentation Trends in U.S. Movies 1991-2008
Smoking Presentation Trends in U.S. Movies 1991-2008 Kori Titus, MBA Jonathan R. Polansky Stanton Glantz, PHD BREATHE CALIFORNIA of SACRAMENTO-EMIGRANT TRAILS and the CENTER FOR TOBAccO CONTROL RESEARCH AND EDUCATION UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO San Francisco, California February 2009 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Tobacco presentations in commercial motion pictures are of serious public health concern because cumulative exposure to this imagery causes large numbers of adolescents to start smoking.1 An estimated 52% of adolescent smoking initiation is attributed to this exposure.2,3 To examine trends in the number of tobacco presentations over time, by Motion Picture Association of America age-classification and North American distributor, we surveyed a large sample of films released to U.S. theaters 1991-2008 to trace the proportion of smoking and smokefree films, incidence of tobacco imagery in films with smoking, tobacco impressions (incidents times paid admissions) delivered to theater audiences, and tobacco brand display. Policy advocacy aimed at reducing adolescent exposure to tobacco in youth-rated (G, PG and PG13) films by modernizing the rating system to rate smoking movies R, with some specific exceptions,4 has been directed at the major studio distributors and their parent corporations since 2001. Some companies have adopted public stances that reflect growing public concern over the issue of smoking in youth-rated films. We pay particular attention to smoking trends in youth-rated films over recent years. KEY FINDINGS Analysis of 1,769 films released over the past 18 years established that: • Most youth exposure to on-screen smoking occurs in youth-rated films, par- ticularly PG13.
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