Smoking is worse than rape and terrorism
I realize that smokers are the lowest scum of the earth lately and that we get bastardized and ostracized worse than the homeless, the drug addicts and the drunks but now we are being told we’re worse than rapists and terrorists. At least that is the position that The American Medical Association Alliance is taking when it comes to the movies. Yes, that’s right our favorite people in scubs is lobbying the Motion Picture Association to apply a mandatory R-rating to any move that has smoking in it.
This is because, according to a report just out via CNN, these green suited goodie two shoes are blaming movies for being the cause of one-third to one-half of all young smokers in the United States. The prime example of the incredible social pressure being applied to our weak-willed innocent babies to get them hooked on smoking is the gratuitous smoking in X-Men Origins: Wolverine
American Medical Association Alliance President Sandi Frost used as her chief example of a movie with “gratuitous smoking” this month’s blockbuster “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” which was rated PG-13 “for intense sequences of action and violence, and some partial nudity.”
“Millions of children have been exposed to the main star of the film, Hugh Jackman, with a cigar in his mouth in various scenes,” Frost said. “I’m willing to bet that not one child would have enjoyed that movie or Mr. Jackman’s performance any less if he hadn’t been smoking.”
Of course Twentieth Century Fox, the studio responsible for the movie, have come out saying otherwise
A spokesman for Twentieth Century Fox, the studio responsible for the Wolverine movie series, said Jackman’s cigar was never lit and it was limited to just two scenes.
In one scene, the cigar is shot out of his mouth, prompting Jackman’s Wolverine character to suggest its loss would lead to clean living — an anti-smoking statement — the studio spokesman said.
He said that while the Wolverine character has a cigar in his mouth in almost every panel of the comic book series, producers made “a conscious decision” to limit the cigar in the movie.
This hasn’t stopped the doctors though in their push to have the MPAA add smoking to its list of factors used in determining the ratings given to movies. A list that runs from cursing, lewd gestures right up to rape and terrorism.
The MPAA has come out and said though that they have already been doing this to an extent for the last two years. Angela Martinez, an MPAA spokesperson, said that smoking is rated like all the other factors which includes sex and violence. This isn’t enough for the doctors though because they what it to be an absolute condition of a movie getting the R-rating not just a factor.
As a side note it took me longer to find a graphic with Wolverine smoking a cigar than it took me to write the post and it wasn’t even a great graphic at that
[hat tip to NewsaramaUpdate: I should also give proper credit to Russ over at Newsarama for the inspiration for this post’s headline – sorry about that Russ]
