The complaint was filed by Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), a national antismoking organization.
Previous complaints by ASH have helped led to the FDA's plan to regulate cigarettes, a proposed rule by OSHA to ban smoking in virtually all workplaces, a Justice Department agreement eliminating cigarette ads in many stadiums, a ban on cigarette- sponsored sporting events in national parks, and many other victories against the tobacco industry.
ASH argues that placing so-called "hidden cigarette ads" in movies is particularly insidious for several reasons.
The first is that movies have a tremendous power to influence consumers. Many remember that, after Clark Gable appeared without an undershirt in IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, sales of undershirts plummeted.
A second is that so many movies appear on television, where the hidden ads for cigarettes are seen by very young and impressionable children.
For many kids, movies are a window on a world they have no contact with. Scenes showing widespread smoking in business and high-class social settings sends the incorrect message that public smoking is widely accepted.
Also, notes ASH, a viewer's guard is not up the way it would be for a cigarette commercial, or for an identified paid ad on a movie screen.
Asked whether movie makers could not solve the legal problem simply by featuring a health warning at the end of their films, ASH Executive Director John Banzhaf noted that such warnings would alert viewers to the widespread practice, and are likely to create even more public pressure for the regulation of the tobacco industry and its advertising and promotional practices.
He also pointed out that a threat to prosecute middle- level tobacco executives for their role in past violations could provide FBI investigators with a very powerful tool to persuade industry insiders to provide information to authorities about other improper tobacco industry practices, including those which are now under investigation by no fewer than five U.S. grand juries.
Other recent movies cited in the complaint include HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS, WAITING TO EXHALE, VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED, BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY, A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT, and THE MASK.
(2) TRANSCRIPT FROM "EYE ON AMERICA," CBS-TV
CBS-TV EVENING NEWS, "EYE ON AMERICA" Thursday, June 20, 1996
HOLLYWOOD ADMITS DRASTIC RISE IN SMOKING ON SCREEN; tobacco companies say they make no under-the-table deals for product placement
DAN RATHER, anchor: For tonight's Eye on America, we're going to take you to the movies to see a Hollywood mystery--a mystery with suspects, but so far no solution. Correspondent Jim Stewart is on the case.
Unidentified Woman buying movie tickets: Great. Two, please.
JIM STEWART reporting: The next time you take in a movie, watch carefully. [[various scenes from movies featuring smoking] See if you can spot it--the hot new trend that has health officials bewildered and Hollywood scrambling to explain itself.
BRUCE WILLIS (Actor): [From movie clip showing him lighting up] What kind of cigarettes you got up here? I'll tell you all about it.
STEWART: Just, it seems, when nearly everyone else in America is trying to quit smoking, up there on the big screen, everybody's suddenly lighting up.
[Excerpt from "THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY"]
CLINT EASTWOOD (Actor): Care for a cigarette?
MERYL STREEP (Actor): Sure.
(both light up)
STEWART: And it's not just the tough guys. Is there an unseen hand behind this trend? The tobacco companies admit there was a time when they paid Hollywood for the well-placed billboard or product logo. [showing excerpts from "SUPERMAN TWO" where a fight takes place surrounded by trucks with large Marlboro signs] But not any longer, they insist.
STEWART: In fact, just last month in a splashy public relations gesture, [showing newspapers in which ads appear] the makers of Marlboro took out full-page ads suggesting bans on certain advertising practices that might entice young people to smoke, including no more paying to place their products in the movies.
JOHN BANZHAF (Executive Director of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)): I think they do it under the table.
STEWART: But that effort caught the attention of John Banzhaf, one of tobacco's loudest critics.
BANZHAF: Why is Philip Morris agreeing to end what we call product placement--paying to get them on--if in fact they're not doing it?
STEWART: Banzhaf remembered that tobacco companies had already said they would stop doing that, and that was six years ago. So why say it again now? [shows 1989 agreement by major tobacco companies not to pay to have smoking shown in movies]
STEWART: So we asked Philip Morris, who said there's no contradiction here. [showing Philip Morris headquarters] Their explanation: In 1990, tobacco companies voluntarily agreed to stop, and Philip Morris has. The ad asks for formal legislation to ban the practice. [showing ad offering to agree to law banning various practices in return for protection from any regulation] That's what's different, they say. Maybe, but Banzhaf doesn't buy it.
BANZHAF: It's one thing to use smoking as a prop in movies, but when you actually see a pack or a brand name, that's pretty much a tip-off that somebody paid somebody something.
STEWART: Today his anti-smoking group filed a petition with the Justice Department asking for an investigation of what it believes are really hidden cigarette ads in movies.
Unidentified Man (directing film): And action!
STEWART: And it may take a federal investigation to get answers from Hollywood. [shows several movies being filmed] Almost everyone we asked refused to talk about the tobacco companies and payments.
CHARLES MATTHAU (Producer/Director): This is a way for them to circumvent the--the law, and...
STEWART: One who did speak out is producer/director Charles Matthau, who directed his father Walter in "The Grass Harp." [shows him directing this movie] On his first movie, he recalled, a cigarette pack mysteriously showed up on the set.
MATTHAU: So I said to the--either the prop man or the set director--I said, you know, 'W--what is this doing here?' They said, 'Oh, you know, it's a product placement situation.'
STEWART: Matthau is convinced there was a payoff to someone on the set. One Hollywood insider said if money is changing hands, he doesn't think it's going to the producers.
BRIAN DYAK (Entertainment Industries Council): I've heard innuendo around prop people being involved. I've heard innuendo about deals that have been done with agents and possibly talent [actors].
STEWART: One by one the cigarette makers tell us, 'We don't pay for product placement. We don't make any under-the-table deals.' Do you believe them?
DYAK: [significant pause while he thinks, then . . .] I don't know what's going on.
STEWART: But whatever the cause or whoever's paying, the movie industry agrees it's on the increase. [scenes showing smoking in "THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY," "PULP FICTION," and several other recent films]
STEWART: And the smoke-filled result will keep spinning out in video rentals, cable and TV for years to come. In Washington, this is Jim Stewart for Eye on America.
(3) COPY OF LEGAL PETITION, FOOTNOTES OMITTED
Before the
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
1331 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20004
In the Matter of
Hidden Cigarette Advertisements in Movies;
a/k/a Product Placement;
all in Violation of 15 U.S.C.A. Sec. 1333
FORMAL PETITION AND REQUEST BY ACTION ON SMOKING AND HEALTH (ASH) FOR AT LEAST A PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION OF HIDDEN CIGARETTE ADS IN MOVIES ALL IN VIOLATION OF 15 U.S.C.A. Sec. 1333
ASH respectfully suggests and requests that the U.S. Department of Justice commence at least a preliminary investigation to determine if the recent increase in cigarette smoking in movies þ especially by young people and other role models þ is caused in whole or in part by payments of money or other things of value by tobacco industry representatives to feature their products; a violation of 15 U.S.C.A. 1333, and punishable by a $10,000 fine.
If it is, studies demonstrate that the illegal practice is literally life-threatening to the 3,000 children induced each and every day to become addicted to nicotine, including many who will also use this "gateway drug" as a stepping stone to marijuana, cocaine, and other illicit drugs.
It is also a matter of "great concern," not only to persons within the antismoking movement and the general public (as evidenced by an edition of NIGHTLINE on Friday [5/3] devoted solely to the topic of smoking in movies), but also to many government officials, including the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Donna Shalala.
THE EVIDENCE
At least five (5) different lines of evidence strongly suggest that at least some of the smoking in movies occurs because cigarette manufacturers pay or otherwise induce movie makers to include their brand of cigarettes in movies as a form of "hidden cigarette advertisements," a violation of 15 U.S.C.A. 1333.
1. "Product placement" þ the payment of money or other things of value to actors, producers, directors, prop-masters, grips, and others in the movie-making business to induce them to feature particular products in films þ is so well established that it needs no documentation.
Indeed, the very fact that the practice is so widespread, and is used by so many companies, also demonstrates their carefully considered opinion that it is effective in creating additional demand for their products; a demand which more than warrants its often huge costs.
And well it should. Movie goers see a product, often with a familiar name or logo, being used by people they regard as role models in situations deliberately designed to be especially stimulating and exciting.
The viewing also occurs at a time when the audience's attention is sharply focused on the plot, and their mental guard against advertising exaggerations and misrepresentations is down þ exactly the opposite of what happens when an ordinary movie-theatre advertisement appears on a screen.
It also appears that such product placement is most effective for products where image and social pressures þ rather than ascertainable utilitarian features þ are the major factors affecting usage; exactly the situation with regard to cigarettes.
2. It is also well established that, at least until very recently, cigarette manufacturers did engage in product placement; providing large sums of money and other gifts to induce top Hollywood celebrities, producers, directors, and others to feature their products in movies. For example, Sylvester Stallone, apparently in a subsequently well-publicized letter dated April 28, 1983, wrote to Mr. Bob Kovoloff of Associated Film Promotion [there is some question as to whether he actually saw the letter which contains his signature] as follows:
As discussed, I guarantee that I will use Brown & Williamson tobacco products in no less than five feature films. It is my understanding that Brown & Williamson will pay a fee of $500,000.00.
[[TO SEE A COPY OF THIS LETTER, CLICK HERE]] http://galen.library.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/html/2404.02/2404.02.1.html
A subsequent letter from Associated Film Promotion confirmed the deal with Stallone:
to have you incorporate personal usage for all films other than the character of Rocky Balboa in Rocky IV, where other leads will have product usage, as well as the appearance of signage (potentially ring). [emphasis added]
[[TO SEE A COPY OF THIS LETTER, CLICK HERE]] http://galen.library.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/html/2404.01/2404.01.1.html
A few of the other films in which the tobacco industry
has acknowledged paying money or things of value to induce the
movie makers to incorporate their brand of cigarettes and smoking
include:
LICENSE TO KILL: Philip Morris admitted to paying $350,000 for
Lark cigarettes to star with James Bond in this film. Lark was
displayed as Bond's cigarette of choice; he lit two different Lark
cigarettes during the movie; his female romantic lead had just
gone back to smoking after several years; a pack of Lark cigarettes is
prominently centered in the frame as a bomb is about to explode;
and a cigarette pack plays an integral part in the plot. When
this product placement became known, the closing credits to the film
were changed to add the health warning about cigarettes which is
required by federal law.
SUPERMAN II: Philip Morris also paid $42,500 to have Lois Lane
smoke Marlboro cigarettes in Superman II, a movie whose obvious
appeal is greatest among young boys. In addition, in the middle
of the movie, a battle between Superman and his evil enemies takes
place in a forest of Marlboro billboards and trucks. As
correspondent Jeff Greenfield just noted on Nightline, "if you saw
Superman II a decade or so ago, you might have thought you were
watching the best of the Marlboro man, because the Philip Morris
Company paid some $42,500 to have Marlboro appear in the film."
SUPERGIRL: Liggett Group paid $30,000 to show Eve cigarettes in
Supergirl. It surely cannot be wholly a coincidence that a movie
with an obvious appeal primarily to young girls was chosen to
feature a cigarette which also, through its name and advertising,
seeks to attract young girls.
BEVERLY HILLS COP: American Tobacco supplied valuable props for
the movie, and obtained invaluable product placement as a result.
A small sampling of other recent films which have also
featured not only significant smoking, but also the prominent
placement of specific brands, includes many movies þ including one
cartoon þ which are aimed at children:
MOVIE TITLE BRAND FEATURED
Agnes of God Benson & Hedges *
Baby Marlboro
Batteries Not Included Salem **
Children of a Lesser God Marlboro
Crimes of the Heart Marlboro
Crocodile Dundee Marlboro
Desperately Seeking Susan Camel
Heaven Help Us Chesterfield
Heavenly Kid Pall Mall
Legal Eagles Century
Risky Business Marlboro
Splash Carlton
Tin Men Marlboro
Two of a Kind Camel
White Knights Marlboro
Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Lucky Strike, Camel ***
* features Jane Fonda, well known for her passion for physical
fitness, smoking
** not only is there a Salem billboard prominently displayed, but
the two main characters both smoke. In one scene an adorable
little spaceship flicks a built-in cigarette lighter to fire-up
the elderly gentleman's cigar.
*** A later survey showed that 40% of those who saw "Who Framed
Roger Rabbit" recalled American Tobacco's Lucky Strike brand.
þ 3. In 1990, largely as a response to these and other
revelations by Thomas A. Luken (D-Ohio) and Bob Whittaker (R-Kan),
Chairman and Ranking Minority Member respectively of the House
Energy and Commerce Committee's Transportation and Hazardous
Materials Subcommittee, the cigarette industry announced that it
would no longer engage in certain product placements for its
products. In a very carefully hedged statement, Tobacco Institute
VP Brennan Dawson cryptically announced that:
the institute's 13 member companies will end paid
placement of tobacco products in films and product
sampling on public streets, sidewalks and parks,
effective this month. Unpaid placement of tobacco
products in movies won't be affected." [emphasis added]
Even in the absence of the evidence still to be
discussed, this announcement would be more troubling than
reassuring for three reasons.
First, the statement is made by a representative of the
Tobacco Institute, an organization which speaks on behalf of all
cigarette manufacturers. If þ as the tobacco industry argues þ
companies engage in product placement and other forms of
advertising primarily to win converts from another company's
products, it is quite unlikely that any company would admit to an
industry-wide trade group that it is engaging in such a normally
highly-secret practice.
Second, a point which hardly seems to need belaboring
is that events of the past several years have created sufficient
doubt in the minds of many þ including the Justice Department þ that
claims and promises by the tobacco industry always can and should
be trusted.
Representatives of an industry which have claimed under
oath that nicotine hasn't been shown to be addictive, or that
smoking hasn't been proven to be a health hazard þ assertions
which can be and are being refuted with their own documents þ can
hardly be trusted when they deny a practice which is as lucrative,
profitable, and underhanded as product placement for cigarettes.
The third and most troubling aspect of the statement is
that it was so carefully couched. "Paid placement," the public is
told, will end, but "unpaid placement of tobacco products in
movies won't be affected." [emphasis added]
But this is apparently what happened in BEVERLY HILLS
COP in which American Tobacco supplied valuable props in return for
having its cigarettes featured in the movie. And that is exactly
what both the Chairman AND the ranking minority member of the
Subcommittee investigating this issue for Congress concluded
should be construed as a crime under the statute
While the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising
Act requires cigarette advertisements to carry a health
warning, it contains no definition of the term,
'advertisement.'
"We believe," Luken and Whittaker wrote, "that
paying money or supplying valuable props to have a
particular cigarette appear in a movie is in fact an
advertisement."[emphasis added]
þ 4. The fourth and most persuasive evidence to strongly
suggest that at least some product placement of cigarettes and
smoking in movies continues is found in a new survey published in
July of 1994 in the American Journal of Public Health. In it
researchers at the medicine department of the University of
California, San Francisco, reviewed 30 years of films. What they
found was that, although the prevalence and percentage of smoking
has been very rapidly declining in the U.S., just the opposite has
been happening on the silver screen.
Specifically the researchers found that:
þ The heroes in movies þ as contrasted with those who
played villains or bit parts þ smoked three times as
often as their counterparts in real life.
þ The use of cigarettes on screen did not decline over
the decades, even though the number of Americans who
smoke dwindled from 42.4% in 1964 to 25.5% in 1994.
þ The number of young adults smoking on camera more than
doubled from 21% in the 1960s to 45% in the 1980s,
compared to only 26% of their counterparts in real life.
þ Although only 19% of Americans of high socioeconomic
status smoke, 57% of those playing the roles of
characters with high socioeconomic status on screen do
smoke.
Other studies show similar problems, even years after
the so-called pledge by the tobacco industry not to engage in product
placement for cigarettes.
For example, Britain's Health Education Authority
recently found that 8 out of 10 of the year's blockbuster movies
contained scenes of smoking. Of the 6 films aimed at children
under 15, 4 films depicted smoking. Moreover, in the 8 out of the
10 films featuring smoking scenes, 14 leading characters þ of
which 4 were women þ smoked.
In 1993, SmokeFree Educational Services was forced to
purchase a number of advertisements in the trade page Daily
Variety to protest films like "Backdraft" and "A River Runs Through It,"
both of which feature heroes who unnecessarily smoke.
Even those who report on the movie industry, and are
therefore in a good position to know, strongly suspect that some
form of product placement is still going on. For example, here's
what Joe Baltake, Movie Critic for the Sacramento Bee, recently
[1/14/96] reported:
And where there's smoke, there's fire. More and more
characters in movies -- and usually in the most unlikely
movies -- are smoking, and the whole thing smacks of an
agreement between the movie and tobacco industries.
(In Christopher Buckley's recent novel, "Thank You for
Smoking," soon to be made into a movie by Mel Gibson, a
scene depicts a tobacco industry representative meeting
with Hollywood big shots to plan an on-screen smoking
campaign in which a film's star endorses cigarettes by
simply smoking.)
One of the realities of modern movies is that very little
of what transpires on screen happens accidentally or
spontaneously.
Oh, sure, sometimes a nice little bit of unplanned shtick
occurs -- and the director decides to keep it in -- but,
for the most part, your typical movie script goes through
a committee that adds and subtracts things based not only
on the whims of the director, producer and cast, but also
on popular trends, the results of focus groups/advance
screenings, and other outside influences.
Product placements have become an accepted evil in
contemporary films. It's business. But in the case of
cigarette smoking, it's become downright insidious.
[emphasis added]
þ 5. On Wednesday, May 16th, Philip Morris made a public
annoucement. The company offered to make a number of major
concessions, and agree to what it described as major restrictions
to be written into law, but only if the FDA were not given
jurisdiction over tobacco products.
Below, in their exact words, is what the company
described as "Elements of Philip Morris U.S.A.'s and United
Tobacco Company's Comprehensive Plan to Combat Underage Tobacco Use":
PRODUCT PLACEMENT: Bans payments by manufacturers,
distributors, retailers or their agents for the placement
of any tobacco product, package or advertisement as a
prop for a movie or television program made for public
viewing.
The clear implication from this offer, therefore, is
that Philip Morris, the largest cigarette manufacturer, is in fact
engaging in þ and apparently believes itself free to engage in þ
product placement of its cigarette products in movies. If not,
its offer would be disingenuous at best and downright deceptive at
worst, since it would then be bargaining to be stopped from doing
what it is not in fact doing.
At the very least, ASH respectfully submits that a
widely-publicized offer to agree not to engage in movie products
placement, as part of a comprehensive proposal to avoid regulation
by the FDA, creates probable cause to believe that at least one
company is currently engaged in the practice.
Therefore an initial step in the preliminary
investigation would be for the Department of Justice to request
that Philip Morris, in response to an official inquiry, state
whether it is bargaining to give up a practice it is currently
engaging in (the most logical interpretation), or simply proposing
as a bargaining point to give up a practice it no longer engages
in.
SPECIAL DANGERS TO THE PUBLIC, ESPECIALLY CHILDREN
Studies too numerous to cite have shown how movies
featuring hidden cigarette ads can be especially dangerous to
young children, and help to persuade them þ in ways almost immune from
parental influence or observation þ to experiment with a deadly
and addictive practice. These include:
þ By showing far more smoking þ and toleration if not
acceptance of the practice þ in many business and social settings
where it no longer is likely to occur, impressionable youngsters
who don't have much opportunity to directly observe such
situations reach the impression that smoking is more widespread and more
widely accepted than it really is.
This is similar to the well-known phenomena in which
people who frequently observe gratuitous violence on the screen
believe that acts of violence are much more widespread than they
really are.
This is especially important because many studies show
that social disapproval of smoking is the most important factor in
persuading people not to smoke. If the impression of this social
disapproval of public smoking is diminished or even negated in the
eyes of children with hidden cigarette ads in movies, they are
more likely to take up the practice.
þ It is well known that young people tend to be influenced
þ
often even to the point of imitating þ actors and actresses they
see on the screen, especially when they are seen as heros and
heroines. Thus when they see Sylvester Stallone, Sharon Stone,
"James Bond," "Lois Lane," and other larger-than-life characters
smoking, the tendency to copy their behavior is a strong one. As
NIGHTLINE recently noted:
JEFF GREENFIELD: . . .smoke does get in the eyes of some
of the brightest stars in the Hollywood firmament, from
Brad Pitt to Christian Slater, from Wynona Ryder to Uma
Thurman. And while characters in the movies may smoke for
all sorts of reasons, there is one overriding impact on
the viewer.
FRED McDONALD [film archivist] : It is an image of a
person in control, a person who's cool, a person who has
it together. . . .
AUDRA ANDREWS, Acting Student: When I was about seven,
the movie Grease came out, and I saw the movie about 25
times. The point of the film, at the end of the film, was
now Sandra is cool, she smokes. I mean, that was really
the only message I got, was wear tight clothing and smoke
cigarettes.
JEFF GREENFIELD: From the very beginning of the century,
the movies have been teaching us what it means to be
tough, to be a rebel, to stand outside the law, to be a
man's man, a dangerous woman, to be seductive, to be
sexy. What's astonishing is how often those messages have
come wrapped in the hazy smoke of a cigarette. [emphasis
added]
Moreover, the effect is not confined to children, nor
even to cigarettes. As NIGHTLINE has reminded us:
Will it really make any difference if images like these
[of cigarettes] disappear from the silver screen? No one
can prove or disprove that argument, but it is now a part
of movie history that when Clark Gable appeared without
an undershirt in IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, sales of
undershirts plummeted. And there is something close to a
consensus that all those black-and-white classics of the
1930s and '40s made cigarette smoking a symbol of all
that was elegant, sophisticated and sexy. [emphasis
added]
þ This tendency of kids to imitate smoking by lead
characters in movies is likely to be especially true when the person smoking
is associated þ either in real life or on the screen þ with
strength, physical fitness, and other indications of good health.
Sylvester Stallone, "James Bond," and many others recently
observed engaging in unnecessary on-screen smoking certainly fall in this
category. As Jeff Greenfield just noted on NIGHTLINE:
Perhaps you were looking at other parts of this famous
scene in BASIC INSTINCT, but Sharon Stone's dangerous,
powerful, sexually compelling character had a cigarette
in her hand the whole time. So do a host of Hollywood's
finest actors and actresses. [emphasis added]
þ These attempts to affect perceptions and opinions are
even more insidious because they occur when the viewers' guards are
down and they are engrossed in the movie plot.
If there was a break in the movie, and similar images
were presented in what was clearly recognized as a commercial
interruption, many older children would at least have their guards
against advertising up.
They would view what is being presented on the screen
with far more skepticism and cynicism because they would know that
those creating the image have a strong interest in fostering a
favorable image for their product, and because they have become
aware of the exaggeration ["puffing"] which occurs in commercials.
However, when the same images are presented in the
middle of a movie, the viewer has no reason to believe that there is a
commercial motive to present smoking in a favorable light, and the
mental and emotional defenses associated with advertisements
simply do not go up.
þ The deadly effectiveness of these hidden advertisements
for
this highly addictive product is often compounded when the movies
are shown þ as most of them eventually are þ on television.
Congress banned cigarette commercials on television þ and not on
billboards and signs, nor in magazines and newspapers þ in large
part because they recognized that TV was far more likely than the
other forms of advertising to influence young children to start
smoking.
As a three-judge court noted in upholding the ban on
cigarette ads on TV and radio, but not in print and other media,
Capital Broadcasting Company v Mitchell, 333 F. Supp. 582, 585-86
(D.C. 1971):
Substantial evidence showed that the most persuasive
advertising was being conducted on radio and television,
and that these broadcasts were particularly effective in
reaching a very large audience of young people. n13
Thus, Congress knew of the close relationship
between cigarette commercials broadcast on the electronic
media and their potential influence on young people, and
was no doubt aware that the younger the individual, the
greater the reliance on the broadcast message rather than
the written word.
A pre-school or early elementary school age child
can hear and understand a radio commercial or see, hear
and understand a television commercial, while at the same
time be substantially unaffected by an advertisement
printed in a newspaper, magazine or appearing on a
billboard. [emphasis added]
Indeed, citing to the earlier case of Banzhaf v. FCC,
405 F.2d 1082 (1968), cert. denied, 396 U.S. 842 (1969), the Capital
court went so far as to recognize a "subliminal impact" of
cigarette ads appearing on TV, even when the ads were not imbedded
in a movie, and even where viewers were aware that they were
seeing an advertisement and had their mental guard up.
Written messages are not communicated unless they
are read, and reading requires an affirmative act.
Broadcast messages, in contrast are 'in the air.' In an
age of omnipresent radio, there scarcely breathes a
citizen who does not know some part of a leading
cigarette jingle by heart. * * It is difficult to
calculate the subliminal impact of this pervasive
propaganda, which may be heard even if not listened to,
but it may reasonably be thought greater than the impact
of the written word. n14 [emphasis added]
For all of these reasons it is respectfully suggested
that paying money or other things of value to feature a particular
brand of cigarettes in a movie not only constitutes "advertising"
which violates 15 U.S.C.A. 1333 since it does not contain the
required health warning, but is a particularly serious and
insidious violation since it has the effect of helping to induce
more than 3,000 children every day to take up this deadly practice
and become addicted.
HHS Secretary Donna Shalala recently summarized
additional concerns on the NIGHTLINE broadcast:
The [cigarette] advertising is reinforced by the other
glamour messages. Obviously, what we're concerned about
here is glamorizing, movie stars and heroes and pictures
of people who are glamorous smoking cigarettes, and it's
the reinforcement that's the concern here.
Young people, children, smoke the brands of cigarettes
that are heavily advertised, and if that's reinforced
every time they go to the movies, that clearly is not
helpful. The industry knows that, and they don't see
government coming down hard on them. . . .
And it's hard to explain, but it's that interaction that
has such an impact on culture and on their attitudes
about how glamorous things like cigarette smoking is.
[emphasis added]
CIGARETTE ADVERTISING AND THE EFFECT ON ILLICIT DRUG USE
Approximately 3,000 children start smoking every single
day. Of those most will become addicted, and it is estimated that
at least one third will be killed by their smoking, and many more
will eventually become disabled from emphysema, strokes,
amputations, and other complications. Thus the toll from tobacco
smoking alone is enormous.
However, at a time when the Justice Department is
playing a major role in the war against illicit drugs, it cannot ignore
the very major impact the smoking of tobacco cigarettes has on getting
children hooked on illegal drugs.
For example, as the U.S. Surgeon General has reported,
teenagers who smoke tobacco cigarettes are 100 times (NOT just
100%) more likely to go on to use marijuana, and 30 times (NOT
just 30%) more likely to graduate to the use of cocaine.
Moreover, another study by the Center on Addiction and
Substance Abuse at Columbia University showed that about 65% of
cocaine users started by smoking cigarettes; adults who started to
smoke before the age of 15 are 3 times (300%) as likely to be
regular hard drug users, and more than twice as likely to be
regular cocaine users than those who started smoking at 18 or
older; and children who smoke daily are 13 times (1300%) more
likely to use heroin than children who smoke less often.
The Surgeon General as well as many others have called
nicotine the "gateway drug" because young children usually begin
with cigarettes before moving on to other drugs. Here are some of
the reasons why.
Smoking tobacco cigarettes creates a tolerance for
inhaling smoke generally, and makes children far more receptive to
the smoking of marijuana; the first puff of a marijuana cigarette
is reportedly very rough and harsh for anyone not already
accustomed to smoking tobacco.
Children who get accustomed to purchasing what for them
is an illegal product also appear to become less reluctant to
purchase other illegal products such as marijuana as they grow
older.
Even more importantly, it appears that children who
start smoking tobacco cigarettes are much more likely to move on to
stronger and illegal drugs simply because their teen or even pre-
teen smoking lures them into a drug-dependent mentality.
In other words, while most children facing pressures þ
in school, from other family members, and in social situations þ
learn to cope with those pressure by developing psychological "coping
mechanisms," children who are smokers often fail to develop those
crucial skills. Instead of developing such coping mechanisms,
they are likely to rely upon the soothing sensations and relaxation
from tension afforded by smoking tobacco.
Then, when those tensions increase as they grow older,
and the effects of tobacco are no longer sufficient to deal with
these pressures, there is a much greater tendency to turn to other
and more powerful drugs to continue functioning, particularly if
other coping skills haven't been developed.
CONCLUSION
For all of these reasons ASH respectfully urges the
Justice Department to conduct at least a preliminary investigation
to determine if the recent increase in cigarette smoking in movies
þ especially by young people and other role models þ is caused in
whole or in part by payments of money or other things of value by
tobacco industry representatives to feature their products; a
violation of 15 U.S.C.A. 1333, and punishable by a $10,000 fine.
As outlined herein, there is more than sufficient
evidence to establish probable cause that an illegal practice
which cigarette manufacturers have been forced to admit they once
engaged in continues to this day; that the practice has a very strong
tendency to encourage many of the 3,000 kids who become hooked on
nicotine every single day to begin experimenting with tobacco use;
and that tobacco use in turn is the gateway to the abuse of
illegal hard drugs.
It would take very little time or effort for the
Department to write to the six major tobacco companies to ask
whether during the last five years their companies have directly
or indirectly (e.g., through agents) provided or promised anything of
value to induce the placement of their product in movies.
Similar letters can also easily be sent to major movie
studios, asking them to deny in writing, and under the penalties
for lying in an official investigation, whether they or any of
their agents or employees has accepted such payments of money or
other things of value from cigarette manufacturers.
Responses to these simple letters can then be analyzed
to determine if any further inquires are appropriate.
If all of the respondents are willing to make clear and
unequivocal denials that such a practice exists, this by itself
would be important news to the growing numbers of members of the
public who believe that the clearly-noticeable increase in smoking
in movies is the result of tobacco industry influence.
If such denials were not forthcoming, or if they are
hedged, that also would be important and newsworthy information,
and might well justify further investigation.
Needless to say, if any evidence of wrongdoing is
uncovered, it could also assist in many ways in the other
investigations by the Justice Department of the tobacco industry
which are now reportedly underway.
In short, in view of the evidence and growing public
concern over this problem, there seems to be every reason to send
out a few letters of inquiry, and little reason to ignore the
mounting evidence and concern and do nothing.
Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) would be delighted
to provide any further information or other assistance you may
request.
Respectfully submitted,
John F. Banzhaf III, Esq.
Executive Director & Chief Counsel
Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)
2013 H Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20006
(202) 659-4310
Friday, June 21, 1996
EXAMPLES OF RECENT MOVIES IN WHICH EXAGGERATED AMOUNTS OF
SMOKING ARE FEATURED, OFTEN IN INAPPROPRIATE SITUATIONS *
"HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS" (1995) stars Holly Hunter and Robert
Downey Jr., playing sister and brother, indulge in cozy small talk
while sharing a cigarette, puffing and swapping it. It's a nice,
intimate -- and very empty -- scene because you have no idea what
they're talking about. You become hypnotized by that cigarette
going back and forth, back and forth, to the point of blocking out
their dialogue. Earlier in the film, you notice that Anne
Bancroft, playing their mother, does all of her initial scenes
with a cigarette dangling off her lip, in both lighted and unlighted
states.
"WAITING TO EXHALE," Angela Bassett, as Bernadine, plays just
about all of her key scenes with a cigarette in her hand or in her
mouth. When she sets fire to husband Michael Beach's belongings, she uses
a cigarette; when she flirts with Wesley Snipes while drinking
scotch in a hotel bar, she's smoking.
"NOW AND THEN" (1995), Demi Moore and Melanie Griffith don't play
any of their early scenes without a cigarette in their mouths.
Moore comes across as a dedicated family person -- she has three
daughters -- so you wonder what kind of an influence this is on
them.
"VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED" (1995), one of the more ridiculous images
was Kirstie Alley puffing away; because she's playing a doctor.
Her character should know better.
"THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY," tobacco played a significant role
in the love affair between Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep.
"BACKDRAFT," the hero þ who should know better because he is a
fireman, is a smoker.
"A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT" features beautiful outdoor scenes with
clear air and clean water, and yet the hero smokes.
"THE MASK", Jim Carrey's madcap cartoon character in a mythical
green mask blew a valentine-shaped smoke ring, and used the catch
phrase ''Smokin!'' three times to define the cutting edge of hip.
"MOONLIGHT AND VALENTINO." Gwyneth Paltrow has smoke coming out of
her mouth and nose through the entire film. That's no
exaggeration.
What is exaggerated -- to the point of being gross -- is her
cigarette smoking.
"PULP FICTION," youthful reviewers found more than 100 incidents
of tobacco use. A sultry Uma Thurman dangling a cigarette is the
poster girl for the gritty film.
"REALITY BITES" (1994), Winona Ryder and Ethan Hawke chain-smoked.
"CORRINA, CORRINA" (1994), Whoopi Goldberg chainsmokes, a movie
aimed at women.
"BOYS ON THE SIDE" (1995), Whoopi Goldberg chainsmokes, a movie
aimed at women.
"HOW TO MAKE AN AMERICAN QUILT" (1995), lots of smoking in a movie
aimed at women.
* all comments are from reviews or other articles about the movie
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