There are protests against self-help schlockfest He’s Just Not That Into You, but not for the most obvious offense (i.e. that all women are desperate to land a man).
Unfortunately, it’s for as dumb a reason as you can imagine:
The American Medical Association Alliance said it intends to lodge an official complaint on Thursday with Warner Brothers and its corporate parent, Time Warner, over “disturbing images of specific cigarette brands in this youth-rated movie,” said Melissa Walthers, director of the health advocacy group’s effort to reduce teenage smoking.
Among other things, the group wants Warner publicly to certify that it received no payment for the product placement and is asking all Hollywood studios to ban filmmakers from showing specific tobacco brands in their work. “There is absolutely zero artistic justification for this,” Ms. Walthers said in a telephone interview, adding that various studies estimate that smoking in films prompts 200,000 young people annually to start smoking.
A Warner Brothers spokesman declined to comment.
“He’s Just Not That Into You,” a PG-13 hit which has sold more than $100 million in tickets worldwide since its release on Feb. 6, does not depict anyone smoking [emphasis added], and there is a prominent story line placing cigarettes in a negative light. A character played by Jennifer Connelly leaves her husband (Bradley Cooper) not because he cheated on her — which he admits to her that he did — but because he lied about quitting smoking.
But there are numerous shots of Natural American Spirit Lights, easily identifiable by their bright yellow box. The alliance, the 27,000-member volunteer arm of the A.M.A., also spotted a “highly recognizable red Marlboro carton,” although a person who worked on the film disputed this.
As for the story line discouraging smoking, Ms. Walthers said, “It doesn’t really matter if the story line is negative or not in terms of the impact on kids.”
So they want Warner Bros. to apologize for a skeevy character who is so addicted to cigarettes (yet doesn’t smoke on screen) that his wife leaves him — because it still might glamorize smoking? I mean, I get why Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny should not be depicted smoking. But Bradley Cooper? The guy who played Sack in Wedding Crashers? No one wants to be that guy. Just let him do his thing and I guarantee he will turn kids off American Spirits forever.
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So a storyline that depicts cigarettes “in a negative light” doesn’t matter, but the fact that the cigarettes are in the movie at all DOES matter? How can you have one without the other?
That’s like saying “drugs are bad” without showing the consequences of said drugs.
That’s like saying “Jeremy Piven can’t act” without showing specific examples…okay, we could skip the examples, because it could make people WANT to take drugs, and “drugs are bad”.
I’m glad the AMAA has decided all those other nasty diseases in the world have been conquered so they can spend their time complaining about people smoking in stupid movies that no one actually saw.
Hey AMA, wheres that vaccine you promised me to inoculate the women of the world against my astonishing good looks? Well maybe you should skip that one for now.
coming from someone who has seen the movie, how many teenagers do they really think are going to see it? ridiculous.
Of all the asinine things to protest about. I mean, it’s not like Aniston is rolling her own smokes or all the glamorous people are smoking. Get real.
Dude, these guys are SO right! SEEING someone smoking is plenty to make my highschool-aged self want to smoke, but seeing the EFFECTS of it, such as the loss of a loved one to said smoking is TOTALLY not enough to make me not want to!
These guys are genuises. Get them to Washington STAT!
I decided to add emphasis to the quoted part of the article because it makes the whole story even more ridiculous. NO ONE IS SHOWN SMOKING IN THE MOVIE. The “disturbing images” are of packs of cigarettes.
Tobacco product placements in Hollywood are a legendary source of producer income. They really should be outlawed.
Also…
Of all the reasons NOT to see this thing, this is about #3,998. Right behind “Please, Jennifer, for the love of little green apples, will you DO SOMETHING with your stupid stringy hair.”
Well, we all know that seeing a beer can makes us want to drink. Yep, sure, if you believe that one, then I am a married virgin.
In the Picture, from Left to right:
I’d Hit It, I’d Hit It, & I’d Hit It.
I think I want a cigarette now *nervous tic*.
i just saw this movie last night and i was thinking “maybe they should cover the logo”.. but she did a little bit when she left the pack of cigs for her cheating husband with a note on top of them lol
You can’t have Connelly Jrod.
How does being kicked out of your home and divorced because you’re a lying sack of shit glamorize smoking?
Teenagers see smoking in real life every day. I know they’re impressionable but give them a teeny bit of credit. If they weren’t planning on smoking already, seeing it on the big screen is not going to change that one bit.
Wait a second, the character leaves her husband because he lies about quitting smoking? I think the message that one should be so shallow as to leave the person they promised to be with through thick and thin till they die over something like that is worse than any tobacco products being shown in the movie. Granted, the character cheated too, but apparently, boning someone outside of the marriage and potentially bringing home a disease is okay by Hollywood standards.
That said, as a smoker who has smoked half a pack a day since the age of 17, I can very honestly say that it wasn’t TV or movies that got me to try cigarettes. It wasn’t even my mom and grandma, because I thought they were disgusting when I watched them smoke. It was a boy when I was going through my “I love bad boys phase.” But I can only blame myself, because even that hot boy didn’t twist my arm and make me smoke. And you know what, I have no room to apologize for my habit to others, or make excuses for myself about it. I am a respectful smoker and go where I am permitted and dispose of butts properly so if anyone wants to complain they can bite me. But now I am on a tangent and was really just trying to say that if people actually took responsibility for their actions and stopped blaming everything in the movies, they’d have time to actually be productive and not make teenagers want to smoke with all the BS whining about it being inappropriate for children to see when they are bound to see it anyway in the real world. The more forbidden something is, the more appealing and tempting.
Chronic, he also cheated on her. The smoking thing was the last straw.
Jess, I know. I mentioned that. The importance placed on one thing over the other is very misplaced.
With all the places banning smoking in bars, teens are getting more smoke than ever before with adults staying home now to drink and smoke. Also, it’s really easy to bum smokes from bar patrons forced outside to smoke, along with the undesirables the groups attract.
I just keep thinking about what George Carlin said: “Kids don’t smoke because a camel in sunglasses tells them to. They smoke for the same reason every other smoker smokes – because it’s an enjoyable activity that relieves anxiety and depression.” *lol*
I don’t smoke currently *except for the occasional clove cigarette* but I started doing stuff like that because all the people I hung out with did. No one pressured me either.
My fiance just said that he thinks 90% of people who protest for the sake of the kids probably don’t have kids…and I said that some of them probably do, but want someone else to raise them and deal with the more difficult questions. Lazy parents.
“The alliance…spotted a “highly recognizable red Marlboro carton,” although a person who worked on the film disputed this.”
hallucinations ftl…so it’s okay for their a$$es to smoke crack, but I can’t smoke my cigs…nor watch a movie that might make me wanna smoke my cigs according to some bs research.
I think the AMA should protest the film because yet again Aniston has made millions of bucks playing nothing other than herself: same clothes, same whiney voice, same hair, same story, same old same old. :-p
BTW Sapphire, I’ve heard that clove oil is actually very toxic for the lungs. Don’t know if it’s true or not, but be careful.
I watched this one movie, Half Baked, and now I can’t stop hitting the bong…
You should sue, Jrod. They made you do it all.
I, for one, started smoking because the allure of something so taboo was impossible for me to resist. I continued because the feeling I got from my first cigarette was better than sex. Of course, I can’t leave out the satisfaction of the self-destruction involved in cigarette smoking. It’s complex.
Also, how does seeing a certain brand make you want to smoke anymore than seeing someone smoking could?
Good point, Meh. I mean, by the logic in your last line, I should be smoking Salem 100’s or Chesterfield Kings because that’s what my mother and grandmother smoke. Yet, I smoke Marlboro Lights in the UK, and Mediums where they are available. The people protesting this have their heads shoved so far up their butts that they have completely lost touch with reality.
What a lot of people don’t realize is that the antismoking movement *is* a fairly well-coordinated effort with a lot of money behind it. Several years ago the AMA estimated that “Tobacco Control” just in the U.S. was getting over eight hundred million dollars a year just from tobacco taxes to push their agenda of bans and taxes and such things. Every two years they have their ‘World Conference On Smoking Or Health” in various cities at cost of roughly ten million dollars and with over 5,000 activists (many of them employed full time in the biz) in attendance.
They currently think their steamroller of smoking bans is rolling along well enought that they can turn their attention to such things as pushing for an elimination of all “branding” and that’s one of the reasons you see this big concern about brands in this movie.
Here’s a letter I wrote to the UK Guardian just the other day on this. It’s a bit tongue in cheek but I think you’ll enjoy it.
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Dear Editor, Drink XQZ Beer Today! (Re Observer, March 1st, “Pledge to stop law on plain cigarette packets”)
Regarding the debate over the law on plain packaging, this is an idea that has been bandied about over here in the States as well. The debate however should certainly not be limited to tobacco branding.
Think of the many types of beer that are available, and the scurrilous ethics of alcohol pushers who advertise their products to children through such things as sports sponsorships and advertising! With 26 letters in the alphabet there are 17,576 three letter combinations available that could be assigned to plain white-labeled beers.
People would still be free to drink their brand of choice, through a government listing identifying Brand TXQ as being Heineken etc, but “the children” would no longer be subjected to colorful labels and enticements to drink! Drinking will become a thing of the past as those seeking healthy pub fare will do so in comfort while the alkies simply step outside for a few quick gulps of XQZ or ECG beer or wine after their meal before rejoining the normal folks back inside.
White label code branding for society’s undesirable habits is the wave of the future! Don’t be left behind!
===
They ain’t gonna stop with cigarettes folks. The Puritans have big money behind them nowadays and it’s just going to get bigger: Obama just signed SCHIP which will literally add a 2,000% tax increase on loose tobacco: the tobacco that’s rolled into cigarettes by people too poor to buy their own. So much for taxing the rich, eh?
Michael J. McFadden
Author of “Dissecting Antismokers’ Brains”