New at Reason

May 17, 2007

Steve Chapman looks into the near future when cigarette smoking will be as verboten in family films as cameos by Jenna Jameson.

Comments

thoreau|5.17.07 @ 8:47AM|#

I'd be fine with movies that had fewer smoking scenes in them if Jenna Jameson scenes were substituted.

Do I have a second on the motion?

|5.17.07 @ 8:59AM|#

I'll raise my hand to that, T. One hand.

|5.17.07 @ 9:17AM|#

I am decidedly with you on that one Dr T

|5.17.07 @ 9:19AM|#

Actually, I would be happy simply if this thread generated a lot of Jenna Jameson posts and trivia. Something for me to read while I am waiting for my constantly delayed flight.

I have done searched the nets for stuff about Ron Paul and the debates. And I am way to tired to do any heavy reading.

|5.17.07 @ 9:47AM|#

"Depictions that glamorize smoking or movies that feature pervasive smoking outside of a historic or other mitigating context" would run afoul of the ratings board.

But wouldn't this just cause filmmakers to make sure that they create just such an historic or other mitigating context? And wouldn't the result be more films about contexts in which smoking is okay? And wouldn't this lead to more smoking in films? And thus to a result exactly opposite of that wished for by the Nannies?

Kwais, J. Jameson, from what I hear, likes long walks on the beach and wanted to be a marine biologist when she was a little girl.

Lupito41|5.17.07 @ 9:52AM|#

I just don't see the issue here. Is the MPAA inconsistent and bone-headed? Yes. Are the attorneys general sticking their noses where they don't belong? Yes. Is anything being "censored"? No. The AG suggestion was just a suggestion, and participation in the MPAA ratings system is still voluntary.

I wish everyone involved in the change would spontaneously combust, but Chapman seems to be over-reacting here in regards to "censorship".

|5.17.07 @ 9:56AM|#

Jenna Jameson began her career as an adult film star in 1993, again with her father's consent. Her first appearances were in girl-girl scenes. Her first onscreen sex scene with a woman occurred in 1994's Up and Cummers 11.

http://www.askmen.com/women/models_250/262_jenna_jameson.html

Lupito41|5.17.07 @ 9:56AM|#

"And wouldn't the result be more films about contexts in which smoking is okay?"

I don't think Hollywood is going to proactively bend their "creative" energy in order to include smoking in films. It is most often used as a substitution for real acting anyway (ie: I'm smoking, so you know I'm upset), so maybe the result will be a net decrease in Ben Afflecks.

Thomas Paine\'s Goiter|5.17.07 @ 10:07AM|#

Jenna is looking MIGHTY rough lately. Not desirable, even.

Russ 2000|5.17.07 @ 10:08AM|#

Just because there is lots of beer drinking at baseball games doesn't mean beer drinking causes baseball.

He's right about this. Beer drinking causes softball.

Anyway, here's some "great moments in smoking bans" I lifted from The Atlantic:


When the French National Library airbrushed the cigarette out of Jean-Paul Sartre's hand in a 2005 poster of the iconic, chain-smoking philosopher, you knew it was only a matter of time. This February, France joins a growing number of jurisdictions that have implemented far-reaching smoke-free legislation-including such unusual suspects as Cuba (after Fidel Castro gave up cigars in 1986) and Hong Kong (which has temporarily exempted mah-jongg parlors and a few other places). But while the current antismoking phenomenon may appear unstoppable, a look back reveals that tobacco bans are hardly new-and rarely permanent. Here are some of the earlier smoke-free movements in history.

1624: On the logic that tobacco use prompts sneezing, which too closely resembles sexual ecstasy, Pope Urban VIII issues a worldwide smoking ban and threatens excommunication for those who smoke or take snuff in holy places. A century later, snuff-loving Pope Benedict XIII repeals all papal smoking bans, and in 1779, the Vatican opens its own tobacco factory

1633: Sultan Murad IV prohibits smoking in the Ottoman Empire; as many as eighteen people a day are executed for breaking the law. Murad's successor, Ibrahim the Mad, lifts the ban in 1647, and tobacco soon becomes an elite indulgence-joining coffee, wine, and opium, according to a historian living under Ibrahim's reign, as one of the four "cushions on the sofa of pleasure."

1634: Czar Michael of Russia bans smoking, promising even first-time offenders whippings, floggings, a slit nose, and a one-way trip to Siberia. By 1674, smokers are deemed criminals subject to the death penalty. Two years later, the smoking ban is lifted.

1646: The General Court of Massachusetts Bay prohibits citizens from smoking tobacco except when on a journey and at least five miles away from any town. The next year, the Colony of Connecticut restricts citizens to one smoke a day, "not in company with any other." Though some statutes remain on the books for decades, enforcement diminishes, and by the early 1700s, New England is a major consumer and producer of tobacco.

1891: Angered by the shah's generous tobacco concession to England, Iranians protest widely, and the Grand Ayatollah Haji Mirza Hasan Shirazi issues a fatwa banning Shiites from using or trading tobacco. The tensions spark the Tobacco Rebellion-the culmination of a long-standing confrontation between Iran's shahs and its clergy over foreign influence. The following year, once the country's business dealings with the Brits are revoked, Iran's Shiites happily resume smoking.

1895: North Dakota bans the sale of cigarettes. Over the next twenty-six years, fourteen other statehouses, propelled by the national temperance movement, follow suit. Antismoking crusader Lucy Gaston announces her candidacy for president in 1920-the same year Warren G. Harding's nomination is decided by Republican Party bosses in a "smoke-filled room." By 1927, all smoke-free legislation-except that banning the sale of cigarettes to minors-is repealed.

1942: Adolf Hitler calls tobacco "the wrath of the Red Man against the White Man, vengeance for having been given hard liquor," and directs one of the most aggressive antismoking campaigns in history, including heavy taxes and bans on smoking in many public places. The country's antismoking movement loses most of its momentum after the Nuremberg trials, and by the mid-1950s, domestic consumption exceeds prewar levels.

|5.17.07 @ 10:19AM|#

and participation in the MPAA ratings system is still voluntary

Well, it is not exactly voluntary... If there wasn't the MPAA system, politicians would tell the movie industry "regulate yourselves or we are going to do it for you!".

Clearly, the ever constant threat of government regulation is used to intimidate people into a very rigid ratings system.

|5.17.07 @ 10:32AM|#

Thomas Paine's noncancerous enlargement of the thyroid gland is absolutley correct. The girl has seen better days.

Here's a totally SFW (but not safe for stomach) link with red carpet pics. No one 5'7" should weigh 90 pounds.

Lupito41|5.17.07 @ 10:35AM|#

Rex:

I get and agree with your point, but so far, yes, MPAA is "exactly" voluntary. Obfuscation is for the other guys; let's squash this kind of crap on merit.

Russ:

Awesome stuff. Thanks!

Ryan|5.17.07 @ 10:40AM|#

Calling the AG's statement a "suggestion" is, I believe, to benign. This suggestion from 32 AG's carries 2 implied threats of government action:
1) If you don't, we will take over rating movies, and
2) If you don't, well, we sure enjoyed that windfall from Phillip Morris. How much are you guys worth again?

Regarding 1, I think the industy should grow a pair and fight that battle. It's the threat of a multibillion dollar lawsuit against a private organization for dessiminating subversive content that really gets my constitutional dander up.

LarryA|5.17.07 @ 10:54AM|#

But wouldn't this just cause filmmakers to make sure that they create just such an historic or other mitigating context?

You mean like, there are real people out there in the real world who smoke?

Lupito41|5.17.07 @ 10:55AM|#

I guess it's tough for me to get on board with outrage over "possible" outcomes. It's similar to the NRA's opposition to registering gun owners (a principled stance) using the argument of "inevitable" use of the registry to confiscate guns.

I know, however, that I underestimate the gubmint's dastardliness at my own peril. History illustrates it.

Ryan|5.17.07 @ 11:10AM|#

I would say the threat of force is not a possible outcome; it is implicitly present in the issuing of the statement. I do not think the threat being implicit rather than explicit much reduces its chilling effect. These are the head prosecutors of 32 state governments.

|5.17.07 @ 11:31AM|#

Smoking is an unhealthy activity and so yes, people with any sense whatsoever prefer that children not be encouraged to do it.

You guys whine about the strangest things.

Lupito41|5.17.07 @ 11:35AM|#

I agree 100% that the threat of force is real rather than possible, but the actual use of force is still what I'm characterizing as only a "possibility". The threat is despicable, and is rightfully exposed and ridiculed on sites like this, but only the act would be censorship by any stretch, and that's where I think Chapman and others are jumping the gun.

Lupito41|5.17.07 @ 11:36AM|#

"Smoking is an unhealthy activity and so yes, people with any sense whatsoever prefer that children not be encouraged to do it."

How oddly irrelevant.

|5.17.07 @ 11:38AM|#

Kids, don't smoke.

(takes deep, satisfying puff. exhales slowly with obvious pleasure)

Unless you wanna look really, really cool.

|5.17.07 @ 11:42AM|#

The more illicit smoking becomes, the cooler it is.

|5.17.07 @ 11:50AM|#

You guys must not know any smokers. The ones I know are treated like pariahs or sometimes pitied.

|5.17.07 @ 11:55AM|#

Lupito41 says "The threat is despicable... ...but only the act would be censorship"

If I were to say "I will kill you if you print that", then I am threatening. If I actually kill you for printing that, then I am no longer threatening.

Would you not think that "I will kill you..." constitutes censorship?

Answer me! Or I'll kill you!

CB

Ryan|5.17.07 @ 11:56AM|#

I would argue that the government threatening to violate a citizen's Constitutional rights is itself unconstitutional. That of course is a lay opinion, but it seems like a strong one. If the A'sG (heh) sent letters to all Baptist churches stating that it would be best if they taught evolution in Sunday School and some sort of "or else", that has to be a violation in and of itself, right? Threatening to violate your rights if you don't stop exercizing them can't be Constitutional.

Ryan|5.17.07 @ 11:57AM|#

exercising

|5.17.07 @ 12:12PM|#

Dan T:

Which part of, "I'm a loner, Dottie, a rebel" don't you understand? Rebels are pariahs, as are most romanticized figures.

Ryan|5.17.07 @ 12:20PM|#

Reading Dan T. is an unhealthy activity and so yes, people with any sense whatsoever prefer that children not be encouraged to do it.

Where is the gvmt threat against this blog if it refuses to put a warning label on Dan T. comments? Please, gvmt - save us!

|5.17.07 @ 12:29PM|#

What's it like in the Big House, Lamar?

|5.17.07 @ 12:30PM|#

"Smoking is an unhealthy activity and so yes, people with any sense whatsoever prefer that children not be encouraged to do it."

How pleasant, an idea. Kids shouldn't see adults doing "unhealthy" things. Heck then they REALLLLY shouldn't see other kids doing unhealthy things. Home Alone should be rated XXX. Unless of course its healthy for a child to fight off hardend criminals with homemade weapons.

Lupito41|5.17.07 @ 12:32PM|#

Qualify my comments with the understanding that I have not read the letter from the (pluralized)AG to the MPAA, but I think the difference is between saying "I will kill you" and a historical implication of a threat. Yes, I think "I will kill you unless..." is censorship, as would be "We will take over your content-regulation duties unless..."

I just haven't seen the "we will" yet.

BTW, when CB threatened me I peed just a little in my pants. Thanks a lot.

Ben Affleck|5.17.07 @ 12:36PM|#

Crap. Now how will I express "I'm upset"? Maybe I'll point to a rain-streaked window... God I'm a genius!

|5.17.07 @ 12:59PM|#

Thanks for the link Marcvs - and Mom says there nothing useful on the internet.

They can have my ciggi-butt when they pry it from my cold, dead, tobacco stained teeth

|5.17.07 @ 3:07PM|#

You mean like, there are real people out there in the real world who smoke?

No, I don't think so. I don't think that the fact there are real people in the real world that smoke would count (for these regulators) as the right type of mitigating or historical justification for the inclusion of smoking in a film. Thus, if a filmmaker wants to have a character that smokes and wants to live up to the code, a "proper" context will have to be created. I suspect that the result would not be less smoking in movies, but rather more films that contain contexts in which smoking is okay. (Because the desire to have characters who smoke isn't going away: smoking goes a long way towards solving certain problems filmmakers face and it looks cool. The emotional symbolism of a cigarette and its smoke can be very powerful; it just ain't the same when a lollipop is substituted.)

|5.17.07 @ 3:25PM|#

Jenna looked pretty good in that documentary "thinking xxx"

She came across as smart and cool too.

Lupito41|5.17.07 @ 3:41PM|#

"...it just ain't the same when a lollipop is substituted."

What if the lollipop were made of fois gras? Or maybe the actors could chew on incandescent light bulbs.

|5.17.07 @ 4:56PM|#

On the logic that tobacco use prompts sneezing, which too closely resembles sexual ecstasy, Pope Urban VIII issues a worldwide smoking ban. . . .

Man, I must not be sneezing right.

|5.17.07 @ 4:58PM|#

You guys whine about the strangest things.

Funny, that's exactly what I thought when I read about all these tools bitching about smoking in movies.

|5.17.07 @ 9:00PM|#

I can hardly wait for "Blazing Saddles II," when all the cowboys are lined up outside the saloon, smoking . . .