For Immediate Release: May 13, 2000
Contact: Anthony Venti or Laura S. Carter 603/650-7041
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Tobacco Use in Motion Pictures: Is Hollywood Addicted?

Lebanon, NH -- According to a recent study at Dartmouth Medical School, 95 percent of the 250 highest-grossing movies released from 1988 to 1997 depicted characters using tobacco. The study, funded by the National Cancer Institute, represents the most comprehensive analysis of tobacco use in movies to date. The 250 movies analyzed include the top 25 movies per year over the 10-year period.

"Children viewing movies will frequently be exposed to tobacco use as normative and even glamorized behaviors. However, the effect this exposure has on adolescent tobacco use has never been measured," says James Sargent, MD, principal investigator for the research project called "Visual Media Influences on Adolescent Smoking Behavior." The content analysis of tobacco use in movies represents the first phase of the study, which will explore the relationship between exposure to smoking in the movies and the uptake of smoking by adolescents in New Hampshire and Vermont.

More than half the movies analyzed featured tobacco use by a major character. "We are especially concerned about tobacco use by popular stars because we believe this is likely to have the greatest impact on adolescent behavior," says Madeline Dalton, PhD, research director for the study. Tobacco use by major characters was also associated with other high-risk behaviors. Among female characters who smoked on screen, tobacco use was associated with sexual affairs, illegal activities, and reckless driving. These particular associations were not seen for the other gender. Among male characters, tobacco use was associated with violent behavior and dangerous acts. The interaction between tobacco use, gender, and the portrayal of specific behaviors suggests that tobacco may be used to characterize "tough" men and "bad" women.

A total of 3,346 occurrences of tobacco use or imagery were identified in the 250 films. Almost half of these occurrences involved tobacco use (smoking, chewing) or handling by a major or minor character. One fifth of these involved use by ancillary characters, and almost a third involved background tobacco imagery. As one would expect, most tobacco use (69.3%) involved cigarettes, followed by cigars, which accounted for approximately 20% of the use depicted.

"One of the findings that surprised us was that although tobacco use is prevalent, it accounts for only a small proportion of screen time," says Sargent. On average, tobacco is shown on screen for only two minutes per movie, and 75% of the movies contained less than five minutes of tobacco exposure. "While including tobacco in the movies provides salient promotion of the product, excluding it would not affect 98% of the movie content in most cases," Sargent says.

"We hope the findings from this study will raise the awareness of movie makers to this problem and encourage them to consider the adolescent viewer whenever they depict tobacco use in the movies," Sargent continues. "Adolescents respond to role models and persons of star status by emulating them. By allowing stars to depict smoking behavior on screen, the movie industry may be contributing to the current epidemic of adolescent tobacco use."

Although tobacco use is portrayed in movies of all ratings, the incidence is highest in R-rated films. Interestingly, there was no difference in the amount of tobacco use portrayed in PG and PG-13 movies. Similarly, tobacco use was not associated with box-office success.

Results of the study will be presented on May 13, at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies (American Pediatric Society, the Society for Pediatric Research and the Ambulatory Pediatric Association), being held at the Hynes Convention Center, in Boston, from May 12 to 16. Dr. Sargent is a pediatrician at Children's Hospital at Dartmouth, and a researcher at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. Other researchers involved in the study include: Todd Heatherton, PhD, and Jennifer Tickle from the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Dartmouth College; Madeline Dalton, PhD, Michael Beach, MD, PhD, and Bridget Ahrens, MPH, of Dartmouth Medical School. A previous study conducted by this research team, which demonstrated a positive relationship between the uptake of smoking among adolescents and on-screen smoking behavior of their favorite stars, will also be presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies' meeting on May 15.

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