Product Placements & Silver Smoke Screens
According to the AP, officials from the Philip Morris company, the nation's largest cigarette maker, have been meeting recently with representatives of the entertainment industry. The ostensible reason is to devise a campaign to curb youth tobacco use.
Richmond-based Philip Morris USA said Wednesday that it will run advertisements in Daily Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and other trade publications imploring moviemakers: "Please Don't Give Our Cigarette Brands a Part in Your Movie." The ad campaign begins this week and will last several months, Philip Morris spokesman David Sutton said.
Critics are nonplussed:
Matt Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said the industry has been unmoved by previous appeals to shield children from smoking scenes. "Hollywood has ignored the very serious problem that smoking in the movies contributes to youth tobacco use," said Myers, adding that "the problem goes beyond which brands are shown."
Indeed it does go beyond that. Although Philip Morris denies permission for its brands to be shown in movies intended for general audiences, film makers are not required to ask permission. If PM really wanted them to stop then it could, as another critic suggests, threated to sue. But they wouldn't dare do that. These are not stupid men and they are not pick a fight with an industry that provides them with billions of dollars of free advertising:
Stanton Glantz, head of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California at San Francisco... a professor of medicine and leading critic of smoking in movies shown to children, said that even if Philip Morris brands are not shown, the company will benefit from smoking scenes because Marlboro is the leading brand among adolescents.
But what about the motivations and incentives of the entertainment industry, especially filmmakers? Why do they need Big Tobacco to spur them to action. Why aren't they out in front of this public health policy. After all, it's not as if they don't use movies to promote agendas dear to their hearts. The answer, it seems, is artistic freedom:
Attempts to reach Motion Picture Association of America spokesmen for comment were unsuccessful. However, industry representatives have said that while they don't want to encourage youth smoking, filmmakers' freedom of speech in storytelling must be preserved.
Until I read that passage I honestly believed that no one rivaled Big Tobacco at smoke screens, smoke-and-mirrors, and blowing smoke. But in Hollywood Executives, the Grey Cardinals of the Silver Screen, they have met their match. Either that or they havefound kindred souls.
Tags: tobacco | cigarettes | Smoking | philip morris | Hollywood |