Protest over smoking scenes in Avatar

Some of those who oppose smoking in movies have just seen the future,and they are not happy about it.

Some of those who oppose smoking in movies have just seen the future,and they are not happy about it. Having caught up with James Camerons 3-D science fiction thriller,Avatar,over the holidays,Stanton A Glantz,director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California,San Francisco,said his Smoke Free Movies initiative would soon come out with a campaign aimed at what he saw as the movies pro-smoking message.

This is like someone just put a bunch of plutonium in the water supply, Glantz said. He was referring to scenes in which an environmental scientist played by Sigourney Weaver drags lovingly on a cigarette as she works to save the moon Pandora.

Scenesmoking.org,which monitors tobacco mentions in films,gave the PG-13 rated Avatar a rating of its own: A black lung. Still,Camerons movie,distributed by 20th Century Fox,is not the only holiday picture to earn that distinction.

Sherlock Holmes and The Blind Side,which were distributed by Warner Brothers; Nine,from the Weinstein Company; Did You Hear About the Morgans? from Sony Pictures; and The Fantastic Mr Fox,also from Fox,were similarly rated with a black lung for tobacco use,even though they carried a rating of PG-13 or PG from the film industrys Classification and Rating Administration.

In a statement sent by e-mail,Cameron said he had never intended Weavers character,Grace Augustine,to be an aspirational role model for teenagers. Shes rude,she swears,she drinks,she smokes, wrote Cameron. Also,from a character perspective,we were showing that Grace doesnt care about her human body,only her avatar body,which again is a negative comment about people in our real world living too much in their avatars,meaning online and in video games.

Cameron said: I dont believe in the dogmatic idea that no one in a movie should smoke. Movies should reflect reality. If its OK for people to lie,cheat,steal and kill in PG-13 movies,why impose an inconsistent morality when it comes to smoking? I do agree that young role-model characters should not smoke in movies,especially in a way which suggests that it makes them cooler or more accepted by their peers. Smoking,Cameron concluded,is a filthy habit which I dont support,and neither,I believe,does Avatar.