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I hope everyone enjoys Big Bird and Dora, although I’m not even sure they’re safe.
When considering the opinion of another, I always ask how things would look if I followed that person’s logic across the board. An exercise in skating across the board with an Entertainment Tonight emcee last night left me sad for the movie industry.
According to the narrow-minded view of this character, since she could name two “Hollywood personalities” who have cancer (one a smoker and the other not), Hollywood should never allow the world to see another person smoke on screen. The intelligence in this statement is about as convincing as Bush’s weapons-of-mass-deception intelligence and a certain writer’s because-I-made-poor-choices-in-men-we-should-condemn-the-clothing-industry intelligence, but for the sake of this article I’ll just pretend it makes some sense.
Applying that logic across the board would leave us with much of nothing in the movies. Since at least two Hollywood personalities have died from AIDS (whether contracted from sex seems to be irrelevant since one of our smokers didn’t smoke), we should demand Hollywood remove all sex from future movies. To be on the safe side, I suppose they should refrain from showing anyone using drugs (legal or illegal) and blood transfusions.
And since at least two Hollywood personalities have died in car accidents, airplane crashes and drowning accidents, automobiles, airplanes, and water should not be used in future movies. Applying the two-person-with-or-without relevance or logic rule across the board leaves us without guns, alcohol, husbands, wives, sons, daughters, best friends, worst enemies, hospitals, restaurants, staircases, and animals.
I hope everyone enjoys Big Bird and Dora, although I’m not even sure they’re safe.
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1) Do actors/actresses feel pressure to smoke in order to get roles? I've worked with a director who requested smoking onstage, and while the actor smoking was actually a smoker, it was an irritant to others in the play. The voice is important in theatre--trainers will tell you even at a beginning level that, aside from other damage it does, it irritates the vocal folds and causes damage to the voice.
2) Couldn't the special effects team come up with something so that there wouldn't be actual smoking, just the appearance of it? After all, they use tear drops to simulate crying, rather than a punch to the gut. ;-)
As long as actors are expected to actually be willing to smoke for a role, producers won't pay for something like this to be developed, I guess. Or maybe it has already been developed? Are the people we see smoking in the movies actually smoking?
3. I wouldn't want to see smoking as part of product placement in a movie. The average movie-goer is in his/her late teens, and many movies are targeted to teens. A product placement, such as the camera lingering on the brand name of a pack of cigarettes, would be in poor taste in a teen movie.
Anyway you have the right idea and I always enjoy your commentary.
Hugs,
Felix