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Originally Posted by sopsych
I wonder if there is an informal policy among video directors or companies not to snow it in videos.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bob.
i feel it's pretty obvious that when posting videos from the 80s and early 90s you are going to find smoking
the reason why you don't see your precious idols hacking their lungs out in videos is actually because of this guy
Mr. Joe Camel
see in 1997 there was a lawsuit against R. J. Reynolds by a "concerned" lawyer....at the time there were polls that said that Joe Camel came second only to Mickey Mouse as "easily recognized" by six year old children....of course Reynolds denied that it was ever their intention to get young smokers hooks are their garbage product
[...]
i think that the aftermath of what happened in the mid 90s is simple....less stores/channels are going to play these due to corporate sponsorship backing out of such things
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My guess is also that music video directors now (as compared to the in the '80s and early '90s) are more adverse to showing smoking in music videos. I think bob.'s hypothesis sounds reasonable: corporate sponsors for TV stations may back out of supporting stations that give playtime to such videos, as kid-friendly corporations are probably sensitive to the efforts of societies and governments to eliminate smoking.
Yet I'm not sure if that pressure is strong enough to affect music video directors' and bands' choices. Consider this:
Unfortunately, the mention and use of smoking in songs and music videos appears to be on the rise and still is very high, according to a California study done in 2010 (50% of the most popular music videos showed smoking imagery):
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Music Videos and Songs Addicted to Smoking, Study Says | FairWarning
Half of the most popular music among youth in the San Francisco Bay Area includes references to smoking or tobacco, according to a new City of Berkeley study.
The researchers analyzed 79 of the top-playing songs on radio stations catering to listeners in the 12-to-24 age group in the Bay Area. It found that 49.4 percent of the songs had references to smoking in the lyrics, and 51.3 percent included smoking imagery in their music videos.
Conducted by the city’s Tobacco Prevention Program, the study found that smoking is so pervasive in music videos that, even among songs with no references to smoking, 30 percent of the videos had smoking scenes.
The Berkeley study’s authors worry that, after decades of being stigmatized as uncool, smoking is once again gaining strength as a sign of sophistication among young people. The impact of this could be significant; a Dartmouth study referenced by Berkeley found that when comparing youths who had witnessed a great deal of smoking in movies to those who had seen very little, the former group was three times as likely to begin smoking.
FairWarning reported in July that after close to a decade of significant drops, the number of high school smokers has hovered around 20 percent since 2003.
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One possibility is that the tobacco industry may be marketing cigarettes (by making deals with directors?) in music and film media since advertising tobacco on television is illegal in the U.S.
I'd be interested to see how strong of a correlation exists between smoking references in songs, smoking imagery in music videos, and smoking rates among teens and young adults as a function of song or video release year. I'd expect a close correlation, because I think young people are much more susceptible to "doing what is cool and acceptable" than they realize they are.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sopsych
"Madness" by Muse heavily features smoking.
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I was really disappointed by Muse's video for "Madness," and not just because I dislike the song.
I can't fathom why Muse would go to all that effort to create a video in year 2012 that portrays smoking as if it were cool or sexy, when so many people are working hard to spread the anti-smoking message so that children and young adults won't start (
With Teen Smoking in Holding Pattern, Health Officials Seek to Revive Anti-Tobacco Campaigns | FairWarning ).
A close friend's dad, a lovely and funny man, just died of smoking-induced emphysema last week. My friend's (non-smoking) mom died of lung cancer several years ago. What a horrible addiction smoking is that causes people to do that to themselves and their loved ones.
Thinking of how un-loving smoking is reminded me of the one video I can think of that shows smoking:
Cheap Trick's "If You Want My Love" (1982).
I saw the video for the first time last year and was shocked, amused, horrified, and then incredulous to see the set filling up with smoke from that drummer! It's ironic that anyone could sing about love while that smokestack of a man is puffing away behind him.
When I see someone smoking, it's as if I hear him whispering, "Yes, I'm going to die a horrible death, and my smoking is going to kill you, too!" That's the opposite of love. (And we haven't even gotten to the issue of how awful it smells and tastes to kiss someone who smokes.
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The smoking in the video made me think at first that perhaps the band was trying to be intentionally ironic and funny by juxtaposing smoking with love...but I don't think they were. :/
Cheap Trick - "If You Want My Love"
Cheap Trick - If You Want My Love - YouTube