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

Tobacco in Movies & Impact on Youth
to 59% of the people had varying degree of favourable influence created
on them after watching their favourite actors smoke on screen. 59% of the
respondents admitted using other articles like pen or pencil akin a cigarette
in their hand in emulation of some movie actor.
� TOBACCO BRAND RECALL AMONG YOUTH: There was a high
degree of brand recall for the tobacco brands shown in motion pictures.
Around 33.7% of all respondents were able to recall movies with tobacco
brand. This increased to 67% among those having some degree of tobacco
influence. These youngsters could recall either the movie or the brand or
both in at least one movie, proving that tobacco brand placement in movies
and its association with film stars have a high impact and recall value.
� DIRECT IMPACT OF SMOKING ACTORS: Among the tobacco user
respondents, a high 45 percent admitted lighting a cigarette in the style of a
film star and 63% admitted holding a cigarette in film-star style. This
shows that a high percentage of smokers/tobacco consumers are influenced
in some way by the motion pictures.
The indications are absolutely clear. Exposure to smoking in movies promotes
tobacco as a normal behaviour and associates it with style and glamour. It creates
sufficient influence on many youngsters so as to arise a desire in them to smoke.
Some youngsters who have still not experimented with tobacco still admitted
imitating smoking behaviour of the movie characters, thinking it to be fashionable
and imitable.
REVIEW AND BACKGROUND DISCUSSION
The influence movies create on youngsters is now quite well researched and
documented. The impact movies create on promoting tobacco is also now well
understood. It is known that social learning through mass media is a major factor
which contributes to adoption of smoking by young people. 23 The use of tobacco
in television dramas and in movies reinforces misleading ideas that smoking is
socially acceptable and desirable. 14 Adolescent exposed to high pervasiveness of
smoking in movies associate it with a perceptions that smoking is a normative
social and stress reaction behaviour 15 and depiction of smoking in movies and
television appears to operate through promoting more favourable attitudes toward
smoking even among never-smokers. 16
Movies influence fashion, lifestyles, and represent smoking as an acceptable
behaviour. Using this knowledge the greatest tobacco companies have built
relationships with Hollywood's actors and producers, in order to show smoking
and cigarette brands in films. This results in making the teenagers watching these
"smoking films" as the most exposed to start smoking. 17 In popular contemporary
movies, smoking is frequently associated with characteristics many adolescents
find appealing; such as toughness, sexiness, and rebelliousness. 18
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