Election Section

Tobacco study shows influence of movies

The Associated Press
Saturday November 11, 2000

CONCORD, N.H. — Brad Renfro stole a cigarette from his mother’s pocketbook when she wasn’t looking in the 1994 movie “The Client,” and some youths who watched think smoking is cool, according to a study. 

The Dartmouth Medical School study looked at 603 movies from 1988 to 1999 and gauged the level of smoking in each. Researchers then surveyed 5,500 middle schoolers in New Hampshire and Vermont to see if the movies affected their smoking habits. 

“Smoking is just one of the behaviors that kids are more likely to adopt from watching their favorite actors in movies,” said Dr. Madeline Dalton, an assistant professor of pediatrics involved in the study. 

She added, “Kids look to the media to know what is cool. If they see actors smoking, that’s all part of the package.” 

Children surveyed said some of the actors they saw smoking often in movies are Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt. 

The $1.8 million study, which has been conducted over four years, was funded by the National Cancer Institute. Dalton will present some of the findings Tuesday to the American Public Health Association in Boston. 

“There’s some evidence that tobacco use in movies made for adults may have more salience in adolescents,” Dalton said. “Parents need to know it might affect their kids’ behavior.” 

The study looked at the children’s attitude and behavior toward smoking. Dartmouth researchers are seeking another grant to follow children around for four years to see if they start smoking after seeing a movie or if it only affects their amount of smoking. 

“Children viewing movies will frequently be exposed to tobacco use as normative and even glamorized behaviors,” said Dr. James Sargent, the study’s lead researcher. 

In “The Client,” Renfro starred with Susan Sarandon and Tommy Lee Jones. At one point in the movie, the fifth-grader shows his younger brother how to smoke. 

A spokeswoman for the Motion Picture Association of America, which represents film studios, declined to comment Friday. 

The 30 schools that agreed to participate in the study handed out 100-question surveys in class to the children, ages 10 to 14. The schools were chosen at random from 154 in New Hampshire and Vermont that have more than 150 pupils in grades 5 through 8. 

Dalton said researchers are willing to discuss the results of the study with the movie industry at some point. 

Stanton Glantz, a professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco, said he has found that the amount of smoking in movies has increased the last decade after declining in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. 

“The increase in smoking in the movies in the 1990s is a major factor in the increase in youth smoking,” said Glantz, who has studied the link between the two. “The tobacco industry has become more clever in its marketing.” 

Glantz said other studies have shown that if kids see their favorite actor light up, they will pick up the habit.