Disney has decided that none of its movies will feature people who smoke. Disney took the decision because it believes that children are influenced by those they see in movies and that smoking characters lead our youth to take up that nasty habit. Disney said that it would like some of its other studio labels. It might be difficult because those entities put out movies for older audiences but Disney said it is willing to fight that fight. This is where I am baffled.
I can understand Disney not having smoking in its films. They are usually suitable for entire families and feature wholesome or lighthearted themes. Except for a very few, their films are not violent (though when I saw Bambi as a wee tot I cried when the mother got killed) and they promote decent things. Miramax, on the other hand, has films that are not for everyone in the family. Some contain a lot of violence and other things that children should not see.
If smoking encourages children to smoke does not violence encourage them to be violent? If Disney is willing to fight to cut smoking from all studio labels should they not be fighting all those labels to remove violence from their films so as not to encourage our kids to be violent? While we are at it, should not Disney ensure that no one in the movies drinks alcohol so that children are not encouraged to drink?
I am not trying to be flippant or dismissive of their efforts but I would like to know how far they are willing to go to save the children on this planet. It is one thing for them to ban smoking in their products because they are generally good for kids to view but to impose this smoking ban on other studio labels without addressing the other issues makes no sense and makes them appear as disingenuous.
Of course it might be a moot point anyway because the rating folks are going to take smoking in a film into consideration when they rate the films.
Disney should worry about policing up its own Mickey Mouse operation and let the other studios take their own decisions.
Source:
FT.com
