# Cigarette Placement in Movies? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 20, 2004, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cigarette-placement-in-movies/255993 "2004-07-20T14:10:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cigarette-placement-in-movies/255993/21 "2004-07-21T14:38:16Z")
> [@saoirse](#): > > Again, there is no information about how they define this. Does the number of scenes depicting smoking mean actors with talking parts, or also extras? Anyway, you’re presuming, because you have no information. As far as I know, they made it up. As far as I know, you are an alien bent on the destruction of the human race. But that’s just as far as I know. I have no evidence that you are an alien, and you have no evidence that the PIRG made up its statistics. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, I say we presume they’re telling the truth. > [@](#): > > If movies that would once have been R-rated are now being cut to make a PG-13, then the “increase” in smoking in those movies may be due to more movies receiving that rating. But that’s not happening, since smoking is NOT one of the factors that gets a film an R rating. That’s one of the things the PIRG is trying to change. > [@](#): > > We don’t have _any_ information that money is changing hands. No, but we have reasonable grounds for suspicion, which should warrant investigation. > [@](#): > > If the tobacco companies are going to use conspicuous placement, wouldn’t they use a movie that their target audience will actually see? Like, say **Anchorman** , last weekend’s number one movie? Filled end to end with sensual, glamorized depictions of smoking, most prominently by Christina Applegate and Vince Vaughn. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cigarette-placement-in-movies/255993/22 "2004-07-21T14:55:14Z")
Oops. Misinterpreted your point about the ratings. But the incentive to get a PG rating is nothing new, and certainly not something that magically sprang up in the two years following the tobacco settlement. That incentive was there before and after the settlement, and therefore cannot explain the spike in smoking depictions in PG-13 movies in the two years following the settlement. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cigarette-placement-in-movies/255993/23 "2004-07-21T15:10:14Z")
Wow. I tried googling “product placement cigarettes” and turned up [this article](http://www.realitycheckny.com/RC_links/ProductPlacement.htm), which discusses the tobacco industry’s product placement efforts in movies made prior to the tobacco settlement, and also documents the tobacco industry representatives lying to conceal same. The article raises some of the same questions which are on my mind (and which occurred to me _before_ I read the article – so I’m not the only one noticing the trend). ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cigarette-placement-in-movies/255993/24 "2004-07-21T15:55:38Z")
But _Anchorman_ takes place in the 1970s. It is perfectly appropriate for those characters to smoke. In fact, it would be odd if they didn’t. Also, I think there is a lot more pressure in the past few years to get a PG-13 rating. I don’t recall any movie producer fighting an R-rating before 1998. It is true that you have no evidence that I’m not an alien. Why would that matter? As I said, the PIRGs are not a reliable source of information. They have made unfounded assertions in literature they’ve given me. They have taken credit for laws that were passed without their help. They pay their employees a straight 40% commission off the funds they raise, and then claim that those activities are “education” when they publish their financial statements. I’m not insisting that they must be lying. I just need to see the data from their study before I believe a word of it. BTW, product placement is not always compensated. In the current issue of [Newsweek](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5457432/site/newsweek/), in the cover story on iPods: > [@](#): > > Fox TV recently informed Josh Schwartz, producer of its hit series “The O.C.,” that future depictions of music players would have to forgo the telltale white ear buds. Schwartz, himself a 27-year-old who still hasn’t recovered from the shock of having his unit stolen from his BMW, was outraged. “It’s what our audience uses and what our characters would use,” he says. ---
**Author:** ![Balle\_M](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/13edae/32.png) [@Balle\_M](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balle_M)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cigarette-placement-in-movies/255993/25 "2004-07-21T17:10:06Z")
> [@spoke-](#): > > Huh? They point to a 50% increase in use of cigarettes in PG-13 films. That’s evidence (albeit circumstantial) that something is up. It is the sort of evidence that invites further inquiry to see whether money is changing hands somewhere along the line. A Congressional inquiry would not be inappropriate, IMO, and that is what the PIRGs are requesting. Well, lets see… - We’re mired in an increasingly unpopular war - We have an upcoming election with voiced fears of voter abuse - We have a health-care system with serious flaws I agree 100% Let’s take to the barricades and demand that congress drop all of the above and concentrate on _serious_ matters…like whether more people are smoking in movies. Sheesh…wanna see some smokin’? Watch most movies made in the thirties and forties. “Bad news, Fred…You’ve been shot through both lungs. Here…puff on this. You’ll feel better.” ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cigarette-placement-in-movies/255993/26 "2004-07-21T18:35:19Z")
> [@Balle\_M](#): > > I agree 100% Let’s take to the barricades and demand that congress drop all of the above and concentrate on _serious_ matters…like whether more people are smoking in movies. Nice try, but it hardly requires that Congress “drop everything.” The matter can be handled by committee (as such matters always are). ---
**Author:** ![JohnBckWLD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d6d6ee/32.png) [@JohnBckWLD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnBckWLD)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cigarette-placement-in-movies/255993/27 "2004-07-21T23:44:53Z")
> [@saoirse](#): > > But _Anchorman_ takes place in the 1970s. It is perfectly appropriate for those characters to smoke. In fact, it would be odd if they didn’t… Let’s call call Ted Turner and see if he has the technology to pixilate all tobacco products and lit cigarettes in films. If they can airbrush out Robert Johnson’s & Jackson Pollack’s cigarettes on USPS commemorative stamps, James Dean’s Camel on full page magazine ads and FDR’s trademark cigarette holder in images at his Presidential library, why not do it in films. It’ll set the right example to children and will remove the possible collusion between the hevil tobacco companies and greedy Hollywood studios. (Hijack: The term ‘smoke nazi’ is alleged to be almost [70 years old](http://forces.minnesota.321webmaster.com/documents/proctor.htm)). ---
**Author:** ![JohnBckWLD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d6d6ee/32.png) [@JohnBckWLD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnBckWLD)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2004, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cigarette-placement-in-movies/255993/28 "2004-07-22T00:51:59Z")
> [@spoke-](#): > > it hardly requires that Congress “drop everything.” The matter can be handled by committee (as such matters always are). Before they look into this big tobacco payola issue, I want hearing on [this _smoking_ gun](http://www.glennbeck.com/news/05172002.shtml). ---
**Author:** ![Turek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/turek/32/18782_2.png) [@Turek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turek)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2004, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cigarette-placement-in-movies/255993/29 "2004-07-22T12:32:33Z")
> [@JohnBckWLD](#): > > Before they look into this big tobacco payola issue, I want hearing on [this _smoking_ gun](http://www.glennbeck.com/news/05172002.shtml). (re: the site builder, not **JohnBckWLD** ) Daughter: Mommy, why is that man wearing tin-foil on his head? Mommy: Just don’t look him in the eye, dear. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2004, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cigarette-placement-in-movies/255993/30 "2004-07-22T15:28:47Z")
My but you smokers are a defensive bunch. It’d be one thing if I were attacking smokers. I’m not. I am simply questioning whether the tobacco industry is violating the terms of its settlement (which it entered into to avoid a legislative solution). Seems to me that Congress should be pretty interested in whether the tobacco execs are reneging on their deal. (So why are smokers so defensive of big tobacco, anyway? Do you yearn for a world where everyone smokes?) ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2004, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cigarette-placement-in-movies/255993/31 "2004-07-22T17:59:33Z")
As **JohnBckWLD** pointed out, it’s the memory hole approach to smoking that annoys me. After all, over 20% of the adult population [smokes](http://ncadi.samhsa.gov/govpubs/mmwr/vol51/mm5129a3.aspx). If movies are showing 20% of their characters smoking, I haven’t seen it. I don’t know if the characters who smoke look “cool” or not. To me, they just look like they smoke. I remember reading _The Lovely Bones_ recently, and was disappointed that The plot of entire second half of the book is predicated on the mother having to leave the hospital to smoke. This is, of course, absurd. Even in the ICU, in the 1970s, visitors could smoke at the nurses’ station. There was also the waiting rooms and the cafeteria. If I were to put on my tinfoil hat, I would wonder if perhaps removing all evidence that people smoked is a way of avoiding uncomfortable questions about [secondhand smoke](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/000602.html) Like "How many non-smoking bank tellers developed emphysema before 1985? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cigarette-placement-in-movies/255993.md?page=1)