When's the last time you saw anybody smoking on TV, unless it was in an old movie on one of the cable networks? Are smokers going to start feeling like blacks must have in the 1950s, when television producers pretended they didn't exist? Just a passing thought, triggered by:
Smoking in a film? Rate it R, so that no children under 17 are exposed to it.
That idea, at least, is what anti-smoking advocates were promoting at a rally Wednesday evening in Downtown Indianapolis.
So, those under 17 can't handle even seeing somebody smoke? What if they see somebody on the street puffing away?
I know, I know. The idea is that if teens see somebody smoking in a film, it might give them the idea that the habit is condoned by somebody, which will make them desperate to try it themselves. This argument actually had some validity at one point. When I was growing up, it was seen as cool to smoke, and TV and the movies reinforced that idea. But today, when teens are relentlessly bombarded with the evils of smoking?
