The Hindu : Stop smoking on screen

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jun 12, 2003

Opinion

Opinion - Editorials

Stop smoking on screen

CINEMA'S LOVE AFFAIR with the cigarette is age-old. If Humphrey Bogart's rings of smoke finally choked him to death, his fans could not care less. They continued to be fascinated by his smoky aura, and puffed away perhaps their lives as well. Later, popular actresses such as Sharon Stone gave a misplaced sense of confidence to young women, who were enslaved by her cigarette-toting image in "Basic Instinct". At home, Tamil actor Rajnikant's antics with lighted cigarettes, and Bollywood's Shahrukh Khan's play-acting with the poison stick endeared them to especially their young admirers. They were convinced that the cigarette made a great statement. It was fashionable to be seen smoking. It — they felt — added to their self-assurance, and teenage boys and girls began aping their favourite stars. And they included big names, respected names in the film industry, such as Amitabh Bachchan and Kamal Hassan. This trend has had a dangerous sidebar to it: time was when usually villains smoked, not heroes, at least in Indian movies. This has now changed, and much to the glee of Big Tobacco — which finds itself being pushed out of the developed nations — Indian cinema has become a staunch ally of the cigarette.

It is in this hazy, horrible scenario that the Tamil film industry recently celebrated "No Tobacco Day". Supporting the World Health Organisation's theme for 2003, "Tobacco-free film and fashion", students of fashion technology and movie-men came together to drive home a powerful point. Summing it up in a single sentence, one speaker said that "a king-sized cigarette is a king-sized killer". Frame the deadly stick in a film, and you have the classic ingredients of an evil temptation. Here are some figures to prove the enormity of its pull. The WHO in a recent study said that a whopping 76 per cent of Indian movies showed actors and actresses smoking. Tragically, out of the 250 million tobacco users in India, five million are children. And, everyday, hundreds of teens get into the habit, whose last frames often reveal a sad story. What is more, with 15 million people watching an Indian film each day — nearly 900 pictures to choose from annually — tobacco giants must be riding high.

The question now is, are we going to allow the death and destruction of our younger citizens? Was not Indian cinema also envisaged as a powerful social tool? Don't producers, directors and actors claim to have a responsibility towards the community which helps them to survive and shine? Talk to any movie-man, and he will readily acknowledge in private the venom of a cigarette. But transport him to a film set, and he transforms like a chameleon. The urge to play "hero", be one, and look like one is overwhelming in an industry bent on fantasising life, and worse, making audiences believe that this is what is true. Now with financiers and producers dictating terms to scriptwriters and directors in a market with many more flops than hits, the cigarette has come to be seen as a glamorous prop. The people who can really help are actors and actresses. They must refuse to smoke on screen.

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