Current:Home > reviewsRekubit Exchange:Cigarettes and cinema, an inseparable pair: Only one Oscar best-picture nominee has no smoking -Prime Capital Blueprint
Rekubit Exchange:Cigarettes and cinema, an inseparable pair: Only one Oscar best-picture nominee has no smoking
Chainkeen Exchange View
Date:2025-04-06 17:39:48
Smoking is Rekubit Exchangemaking a comeback ― at least in many of the movies and TV shows we love.
Nine out of of this year’s 10 Oscar nominees for best picture featured smoking scenes, including the Victorian-era dramedy "Poor Things" and the satirical literary comedy "American Fiction."
That’s the conclusion of an annual report that measures smoking imagery in streaming TV shows popular among kids and teens and movies. Researchers say such scenes especially imperil impressionable young people, who may overlook the legions of studies that confirm the ill effects of tobacco use.
“Tobacco imagery in movies, TV shows and music videos has become alarmingly pervasive (and) this year’s Oscar best picture nominees are no exception,” says Kathy Crosby, president and CEO of Truth Initiative, the anti-smoking group behind the sixth annual “While You Were Streaming: Lights, Camera, Tobacco?” report.
'Barbie,' set in a world of plastic dolls, is the only Academy Award best-picture nominee without smoking
Nicotine’s harmful and addictive effects are well documented. Nonetheless, every movie up for 2024's best picture award, with the exception of “Barbie,” set in a world of plastic dolls, features smoking scenes.
Admittedly, many of these movies are set in the past, and smoking is used to convey the period when the habit was the norm. They include “Killers of the Flower Moon” (1920s), “Oppenheimer” and “The Zone of Interest” (1940s), “Maestro” (1950s), and “The Holdovers” (1970s).
But others have more contemporary settings, including “Past Lives,” “Anatomy of a Fall” and “American Fiction.” Filmmakers who don’t need to show smoking should abstain, the researchers said.
Truth Initiative research shows that exposure to smoking imagery can triple the likelihood of a young person starting on e-cigarettes, Crosby says.
A 2023 Center for Disease Control and Prevention survey of 27,000 adults found cigarette use at an all-time low, with one in nine adults saying they smoked (compared to 42% of adults in the 1960s).
But the same survey found that e-cigarette use continued to rise, with one in seven adults reporting use. The 2023 National Youth Tobacco Survey revealed that more than 2 million high school and middle school students had used nicotine vaping products in the past year alone.
Doctors have long noted that cigarette smoking is a risk factor for lung cancer, heart disease and stroke.
The risks of exposing young people to smoking are especially high when it comes to streaming hits. Tobacco depictions in streaming shows that are popular with 15-to-24-year-olds more than doubled in 2022 from the previous year, the report says.
They include programs such as “Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story," which the report said featured 306 instances of smoking; HBO teen drama “Euphoria” (200); Netflix's period “Stranger Things” (89); and AMC's “The Walking Dead” (47). Even Fox's “The Simpsons” comes in for criticism, with 195 smoking scenes.
BBC's period piece 'Peaky Blinders' is the worst offender among streaming shows, report says
Among top binge-watched shows, the BBC crime series “Peaky Blinders” led the pack with 893 instances of smoking. The series, starring a leading best actor nominee Cillian Murphy (“Oppenheimer"), is based on a true story and set a century ago in gritty Birmingham, England.
In the Truth Initiative's last report, Netflix's "The Queen's Gambit" was deemed the worst offender. The latest findings reveal that the networks and platforms that showed the most smoking-related scenes were BBC One (due to "Peaky Blinkers"), Netflix (with 429 depictions, more than double last year), Fox (241), HBO (200) and Amazon Prime (193).
This year's report also singles out research form the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center that reveals 35% of movies released in 2022 featured tobacco imagery.
Among music videos, Truth Initiative says the number of tobacco images more than doubled from 2021 to 2022. Artists whose videos featured smoking include Bruno Mars, Elle King, Miranda Lambert and The Weeknd.
The report also points out that YouTube, which a Pew Research Center Study calls the most popualr platform among teens, is awash in tobacco imagery.
Truth Initiative describes itself as the nation’s largest non-profit dedicated to investigating and eradicating the smoking habit, and wants directors and actors to think twice about including smoking or vaping in their projects. The group also would like to see anti-smoking messaging before and after shows featuring such imagery, as well as a ratings system warning of smoking images.
“Images have power and this report aims educate the Hollywood community to recognize its power and responsibility to change the picture and not be the unwitting spokespersons for the tobacco industry," Crosby says.
veryGood! (1875)
Related
- Dick Vitale announces he is cancer free: 'Santa Claus came early'
- A's pitcher Luis Medina can't get batter out at first base after stunning gaffe
- Pennsylvania house explosion: 5 dead, including child, and several nearby homes destroyed
- Russia targets Ukrainian city of Odesa again but Kyiv says it shot down all the missiles and drones
- San Francisco names street for Associated Press photographer who captured the iconic Iwo Jima photo
- Clarence Avant, a major power broker in music, sports and politics, has died at 92
- This Zillow Gone Wild church-turned-mansion breathes new life into former gathering space
- 'Back at square one': Research shows the folly of cashing out of 401(k) when leaving a job
- Buckingham Palace staff under investigation for 'bar brawl'
- Judge in Donald Trump’s hush-money case denies bias claim, won’t step aside
Ranking
- Off the Grid: Sally breaks down USA TODAY's daily crossword puzzle, Triathlon
- A landmark case: In first-of-its-kind Montana climate trial, judge rules for youth activists
- More states expect schools to keep trans girls off girls teams as K-12 classes resume
- See how one volunteer group organized aid deliveries after fire decimates Lahaina
- Trump suggestion that Egypt, Jordan absorb Palestinians from Gaza draws rejections, confusion
- How to get rid of pimples: Acne affects many people. Here's what to do about it.
- How to get rid of pimples: Acne affects many people. Here's what to do about it.
- Clarence Avant, ‘Godfather of Black Music’ and benefactor of athletes and politicians, dies at 92
Recommendation
New Zealand official reverses visa refusal for US conservative influencer Candace Owens
Police apologize after Black teen handcuffed in an unfortunate case of 'wrong place, wrong time'
A former Georgia police chief is now teaching middle school
Northwestern sued again over troubled athletics program. This time it’s the baseball program
EU countries double down on a halt to Syrian asylum claims but will not yet send people back
Victim vignettes: Hawaii wildfires lead to indescribable grief as families learn fate of loved ones
Man wanted in his father’s death in Ohio is arrested by Maryland police following a chase
Nightengale's Notebook: Dodgers running away in NL West with Dave Roberts' 'favorite team'