Movies such as Netflix’s “Don’t Look Up” are being scrutinized by the anti-tobacco movement for featuring smoking or vaping. Credit: Netflix
The next target for the anti-tobacco movement is focusing on how much smoking is portrayed in movies and TV series.
Truth Initiative attacked this year’s Oscar-nominated films, saying that 8 of the 10 films nominated for Best Picture this year, including "Don't Look Up," "CODA," "Drive My Car," "King Richard," "Licorice Pizza," "Nightmare Alley," "The Power of the Dog," and "West Side Story,” featured characters smoking and vaping.
Calling it a “troubling trend of the renormalization and glamorization of tobacco use in entertainment media and pop culture”, Truth Initiative said of all the nominated films across categories, 61% showed tobacco use and nearly 40% of rated films containing tobacco imagery were PG-13.
The organization also monitors popular streaming and broadcast shows among 15- to 24-year-olds for its annual While You Were Streaming report, now in its fourth edition. The report showed that 38% of top grossing movies in 2020 showed tobacco.
Earlier this month Bloomberg reported three US senators sent a letter to streaming-giant Netflix seeking more smoke-free scenes in the streamer’s series and movies, citing Truth Initiative’s report that determined Netflix’s programing had more scenes with smoking or vaping than the content on any other channel for the last four years.
Interestingly, figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that while tobacco use in top-grossing movies jumped 57% from 2010 to 2018, but in the real world, smoking rates in the US were going in the opposite direction, dropping from 19.3% in 2010 to 13.7% in 2018.