NEW
STUDY SAYS
SMOKING IN MOVIES IS INCREASING,
IN CONTRAST TO REAL SMOKING RATES
Press release of March 2, 1998
From: Professor Stan Glantz, University of California
at San Francisco, Press office
Advocates can call to request an e-mailed copy of the
study.
Contact: Jeffrey Norris or Alice Trinkl, News
Director
Tel: (415) 476-2557
The incidence of smoking in top-grossing movies has
increased during the 1990s, and dramatically exceeds real
smoking rates, according to a new study led by a
prominent tobacco researcher from the University of
California San Francisco.
After declining over three decades, smoking in movies has returned
to levels comparable to those observed in the 1960s before the issuance
of the first Surgeon General's report on smoking and health in 1964,
according to Stanton A. Glantz, Ph.D., a professor of medicine at
UCSF with the Institute for Health Policy Studies and the Division
of Cardiology.
The report by Glantz and Theresa F. Stockwell, who
conducted the research as part of a master's degree
project, appears in the new issue of Tobacco Control, a
scientific journal published by the British Medical
Association. The presentation of smoking in films remains
pro-tobacco, according to Stockwell and Glantz, with only
14 percent of tobacco screen-time presenting adverse
social or health effects of tobacco use.
The researchers found that in movies from the 1960s,
tobacco was used about once for every five minutes of
film time. In films from the 1970s and 1980s,
tobacco was used about once every 10 to 15 minutes, but
in movies from the 1990s, tobacco was used an average of
every three to five minutes, according to the
researchers.
"The use of tobacco in films is increasing and is reinforcing
misleading images that present smoking as a widespread and socially
desirable activity," according to Glantz and Stockwell.
"These portrayals may encourage teenagers -- the major movie
audience -- to smoke. "Films continue to present the smoker as
one who is typically white, male, middle class, successful and attractive,
a movie hero who takes smoking for granted," the researchers
report. "As in tobacco advertising, tobacco use in the
movies is associated with youthful vigor, good health, good looks,
and personal and professional acceptance.
"Portrayals of tobacco use, whether in a positive or
negative context, lead to changes in attitudes that
predispose children to smoking. In an era in which
the tobacco industry is finding traditional advertising
media increasingly restricted, the appearance of tobacco
use in motion pictures is an important mechanism to
promote and reinforce tobacco use, particularly among
young people," they report.
To conduct the study, Glantz and Stockwell randomly selected for analysis
five films from among the 20 leading moneymakers for each year from
1990 to 1996. In the movies sampled, 57 percent of leading characters
smoked, compared to just 14 percent of similar people in the general
population. In the films from 1991 through 1996, 80 percent of the
male leads smoked.
In an earlier study Glantz analyzed two films from
among the 20 most popular films every year for the years
1960 through 1990. After comparing the two studies
the researchers concluded that the socioeconomic status
of smokers in movies has increased dramatically during
the 1990s compared to earlier decades, despite the fact
that smoking in real life is more common among lower
social classes.
Among characters who smoked, 55 percent were from a lower
socioeconomic class in the randomly selected movies from
the 1960s, compared to 54 percent in the 1970s, 58
percent in the 1980s, and just 21 percent in the
1990s. The percentage of movie smokers who were
middle class was 19 percent in 1960s movies, 25 percent
in 1970s movies, 25 percent in 1980 movies, but jumped to
49 percent in 1990s movies. The percentage of upper
class smokers in the sampled movies was 26 percent in the
1960s, 21 percent in the 1970s, 17 percent in the 1980s,
and rose to 30 percent in the 1990s.
The reason for the increasing incidence of smoking in
films is not clear, Glantz says.
During the 1980s, the tobacco industry was paying
substantial fees for product placement, Glantz and
Stockwell point out, but the Tobacco Institute claims
that payment for specific brand placement in films has
ended. Glantz and Stockwell found that brand
identification decreased during the 1990s.
Glantz and Stockwell argue that strong anti-tobacco
advertisements should be aired by movie theaters prior to
the screening of any film that portrays smoking, and that
movie producers should require everyone connected to the
making of a film to certify that they are not receiving
money or gifts for the use of tobacco in films.
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