James Doogue

Movies and TV producers in the West, understand their power of social engineering. For instance, in recent years, the ideologically Left-leaning 'progressives',who predominate in the industry, have used their influence to 'normalise' women and minorities in positions of power. It's common to see a black and/or female US President for instance. We barely get 10 minutes into a new movie or TV series before the first LGBTQI character has been introduced. If a powerful character is a straight white male, then they are almost always corrupt Republican voting capitalists.
The power of the screen was demonstrated in a 2012 US survey which showed a shockingly high fraction of people thought a quarter of the country is gay or lesbian, when the reality is that it's probably less than 2 percent.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/05/americans-have-no-idea-how-few-gay-people-there-are/257753/

Knowing the film and TV producers have so much influence over their audience, why is the portrayal of smoking, and more recently vaping, drinking and illicit drugs use being normalised? Shouldn't movie and TV studios want to improve the good health and lives of their audience by excluding depictions of smoking, drinking and drug use, or at least portraying those activities in a bad light?

In the 1950's and 1960's, tobacco companies spent hundreds of millions of dollars advertising their products during the showing of movies and TV shows. This saw a dramatic increase in the percentage of smokers in the US and Australia to a high of about 45%.

In the 1970's regulators started banning tobacco advertising in cinemas, on TV and radio and on billboards.

Big Tobacco's attention turned to paying millions of dollars for product placement in scenes. Not surprisingly images of smoking increased on the screen.

"I do feel heartened at the increasing number of occasions when I go to a movie and see a pack of cigarettes in the hands of the leading lady,” Hamish Maxwell, then president of Philip Morris, told a marketing meeting in 1983, adding, "We must continue to exploit new opportunities to get cigarettes on screen and into the hands of smokers.” https://www.smh.com.au/culture/tv-and-radio/from-the-ashes-smoking-s-curious-comeback-on-the-silver-screen-20220120-p59py5.html

'Paying for on-screen product placement was banned in Australia in 1992, and in 1998 in the US. By 2007, according to the CDC, smoking on screen was at an all-time low: virtually the only people you saw puffing away were historical figures whose persona was inseparable from their habit.'

'According to the CDC, tobacco use in top-grossing movies jumped 57 per cent from 2010 to 2018. Meanwhile, in the real world, smoking rates in the US were going in the opposite direction, from 19.3 per cent in 2010 to 13.7 per cent in 2018.'

It seems the regulators have not kept pace with the industry and the proliferation of movies and TV series produced for streaming services.

'Every year the tobacco companies must certify to the US Federal Trade Commission that they haven’t paid for their product to be placed in movies, TV shows or video games. But the agreement doesn’t cover streaming content.'

'Despite a pledge to limit smoking on screen, Netflix remains the worst offender. (According to the Truth Initiative, an American anti-smoking group, scenes involving smoking tripled in the latest season of its superhero series The Umbrella Academy, which managed to include tobacco in every scene.)'
https://truthinitiative.org/

So either the production companies are back to making millions from tobacco product placement, or they just really want more people smoking.

You could certainly be excused for thinking the film and television producers not only want to raise the incidence of smoking, but also want to increase the use of alcohol and drugs in society.

A research paper published in 2021 was stunning regarding drug use in Oscar Nominated movies.

'All the Oscar-nominated movies portrayed at least one scene of drug use. There was a massive predominance of alcohol and tobacco in movies, with a high use among men who also use drugs, habitually or occasionally, but related to stress/tension, predominantly at home. However, there was a significant progressive increase in the use of drugs other than alcohol and tobacco, multiple drugs, and by women.'
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33198619/

Hollywood films tend to glorify drug use for the sake of entertainment. It's not hard to believe that these films are one of the many driving factors behind the West's increasingly high addiction rates.

Hollywood does a terrific job of glorifying the "highs” and euphoria associated with drug use, yet very few films show viewers the full aftermath of addiction.

Many films inaccurately portray the effects of drugs and alcohol giving the impression that you can be a brilliant functioning individual while regularly drinking to excess and/or using 'recreational' drugs. The producers fail to show how substance abuse and addiction almost always adversely affect one’s livelihood and relationships.

If the people populating the movie and TV industry wanted to use their significant influence for the good of society, there should be no pushback against regulations limiting the portrayal of the use of alcohol, tobacco and drugs to scenes where it is critical to the storyline and historical accuracy, unless it is shown in an accurately negative light. That is, showing the use of tobacco, alcohol and drugs adversely impacts your mental and physical health, relationships, finances and lifestyle.

The regulators should reject any argument that use of tobacco, alcohol or drugs is a necessary part of the background story for authenticity. After all, they don't feel the need to include in their storyline the fact that all the characters have regular bowel movements for authenticity 's sake.

Tim adds:

Our wonderful Rulers now want to implement a depopulation, and getting everyone sick from smoking and drug use and covid shots will help eliminate many.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 11:10 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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