TOBACCO IN MOVIES AND IMPACT ON YOUTH - Smoke Free ...

Tobacco in Movies & Impact on Youth
Another movie “Pyaar Mein Twist” shows a middle aged hero as a successful
businessman who smokes cigar in style with great fondness and so does another
important character who also plays a successful businessman. In “Yuva”, a movie
on young aspirations; the male lead is shown smoking with passion and as a
powerful statement of assertion. The movie “Let’s Enjoy” also projects the same
theme. “Aab Tumareh Hawaley Watan Sathion” is a movie about dynamic young
officers and Akshay Kumar who plays an Army officer is shown smoking with an
unusual style. This style became a hit with a lot of youngsters. Incidentally
Akshay was also the brand ambassador for “Red & White” a cigarette brand.
The first scene of many movies open with a shot of cigar/cigarette, “Chocolate” is
one such movie. The first scene focuses on a hand holding a cigar. The first scene
after of “Kismat” after the titles and featuring the male lead, Bobby Deol begins
with a smoking scene in a police station. The first appearance of the hero is with a
cigarette. He smokes with a style and appears to be macho because of smoking.
“Tum Ho Na” featuring Jackie Shroff also opens with a cigarette scene and so
does “Khauff,” “Siskiyan” and “Jo Boley So Nihal,” all opening with the female
characters holding cigarette.
When only good people smoke: Many times some film makers argue that
display of smoking is necessary and often used only to make the bad characters
and the villains more significant. This, as we have seen above, is a forceless
argument as we can deduct from the above mentioned figures. In 75.5% of the
movies showing tobacco, it is the lead characters who consume tobacco in the
movies and in 21.4% of these, it is exclusively only the leading characters who
smoke and no other character is shown consuming tobacco. Most of the time
tobacco has been associated with glamour and style.
Examples: In movie “Yahaan,” it’s only the hero and his associates who smoke.
They are shown as brave army people. None of the terrorists or negative
characters smokes. Every army officer right from the General to the Captain is
shown smoking at one time or another.
In the movie “Elaan” it is once again only the lead characters who smoke and
drink, the villain or any other member of his gang neither smokes nor drinks.
Similarly in “Aab Tumareh Hawaley Watan Sathion,” a movie featuring the
Indian super star Amitabh Bachachan and the popular hero Akshay Kumar, it’s
only the young army officer who smokes and shows bravery while smoking
cigarettes. Once again none of the negative character used tobacco. Another
popular movie “Dus” also depicted only the hero smoking cigarettes. There are
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