Even until now, despite of the national campaigns on the usage of smoking images on movies, teenagers and young adults are still starting to engage themselves in smoking. Number of smoking images back on the movie screens had pervasively increased. Thus, exposure to this images also became higher.
The US government had made a campaign to decrease the use of tobacco due to the fatality of almost 1,300 Americans per day. Still, tobacco smoking remains the number one cause of curable death in the United States. One of the reasons that threatens the improvement of this campaign is the continuous glamorizing of smoking on the movie screens.
Many young adults of today’s time are taking their ideas primarily from the pop industry and celebrity influencers. And most of them weakly believed that smoking is really popular.
One public convention had already conducted and attended by health professionals, entertainment industry gurus and youth. The convention called as the Truth Initiative Kenneth E. Warner Series touched the effect of tobacco representation in public culture. It was facilitated by Travis Andrews, a Washington Post reporter and composed some articles and stories about social impact of smoking.
Movies – the last fortress of advertising
Because of the various laws and surgeons’ reports about the cigarette smoking death causation, it is very hard and there is almost no place for tobacco companies to advertise their products. Moreover, laws regulating tobacco smoking resulted to difficulty of incorporating cigarettes on TV, radio, and other forms of media broadcasting. Also, the sponsorship of those tobacco companies to sport events and concerts are also prohibited.
However, despite of shutting down all the channels where cigarette smoking can be advertised, companies found the retail marketing as their avenue. One of which is the exposure of only a single picture or single usage of cigarette in one movie scene, in which the movie content is beyond the control of the authority. This way, it is the last resort for tobacco companies to reach their consumers as cinema has establish its effect on students and young viewers.
Explosion of movie content
Because of various media channels today, opportunities for young individuals to get exposed into smoking are getting higher. One example is usage of cigarettes on streaming platforms for their programming or blogging like what is seen on Netflix. Also, more recent video games content have glamorizing smoking during the game.
In order to prevent this, it is not only the government’s responsibility to control such use. It also needs the cooperation of parents in guiding their kids. Also, adults have this responsibility to avoid smoking and take care of themselves.
It is a fact that it is not easy to withdraw from smoking. However, there are ways and products which helps to quit cigarette smoking. Example of such is the Mr. Salt e-juice.
