Rated "R" for Smoking

Let's not mince words: smoking is stupid. It makes people smell, gives them bad breath, stained teeth, the inability to sit still for an hour, costs a ton, not even to mention the health consequences for the smoker and those around said person. I'm of the mindset that if you are a smoker in this day and age, you have a defective mind. And no, addiction isn't an excuse.

With that viewpoint out in the open, this is even stupider than smoking. First of all, I'm highly dubious of the researcher's ability to control the experiment.

But they did zero in on movies by controlling for a wide range of extenuating factors, including race, household income, school performance, parenting styles, smoking among friends and family members, and even personality traits such as rebelliousness.

How does one even begin to control the above factors? How can the researchers trust the teenager's ability to factor out those influences? I know it's an article on CNN.com and designed to get readers, but it drives me crazy when really pertinent information, such as how the study was conducted, is left out.

Secondly, the only reason I ever tried smoking was because of my friends and my friends only. I know it wasn't from my dad because I always tried to stick my head discreetly out the window to the fresh air when he smoked in the care (he has since quit). While there may be some who try smoking because they see a celebrity smoke, they will continue to smoke because their peers and/or parents do the same (most likely peers). After all, how will underage kids get cigarettes if they can't legally purchase them? Perhaps through some older friends or sharing or stealing from their parents? Seems reasonable.


But what really makes this article stupid is suggesting that we rate movies "R" because people are smoking*. Should we retroactively make Casablanca "R" or Ghostbusters, which has almost non-stop smoking? It's ludicrous. As a kid, I never even noticed people smoking (seriously, go back and watch Ghostbusters. It's crazy how often people light up). It's ridiculous to think that some day under the reasons for the rating it will say "extreme gore and violence, nudity, sex, smoking." Are we going to start having kids walk around with blinders on just in case someone is lurking on the sidewalk smoking? Maybe we shouldn't even let kids outside anymore. Of course, what kids have trouble seeing "R"-rated movies these days? 


Perhaps the most shortsighted aspect of this whole thing is that by making smoking a forbidden topic, it's making it that much more enticing. "Smoking is so adult, I'm not even allowed to see it!" "If I smoke, I'll be just like the grown-ups!"

The best part is that the article contradicts itself. In one instance, we're told:

Kids under the age of 18 are particularly vulnerable to images of high-wattage stars smoking cigarettes on the big screen, partly because adolescents, similar to very young children, are prone to mimic behaviors they see others trying, Sargent says.

While just three paragraphs later, we get:

A second study in the same issue of Pediatrics reached a similar conclusion. That study, which looked at 8- to 10-year-old children in the Netherlands and was also coauthored by Sargent, found that 20-minute clips from a cartoon and family film depicting smoking had no measurable impact on the kids' beliefs about smoking. 

Compare your high school experience to when you were 8-10. I'd imagine there was a lot more pressure to try to be cool and I'd also bet a lot of the "cool" kids smoked. You know what? That's crazy. It wasn't other kids. It was movies that pressured everyone to try smoking. The movies are the bullies. Boycott the movies!


*I'm going to avoid the discussion of how pointless the rating system is because it's infuriating to think about.

Stupid Headlines

I know that headlines are supposed to grab one's attention so people will want to read an article and if I see one that's particularly outrageous, I kind of appreciate it. But when headlines strive to simply be informative yet they are still ridiculous, that's when I take umbrage. Case in point:

Halfway down, there's a link that I clicked (it is on CNN.com). It says "Paralyzed boy stuns class, walks." Obviously, it's about a paralyzed boy who stunned his class BY walking. However, the headline suggests that the boy somehow hit his glass with some kind of stun gun and walks out. 

You know what? I don't know why I'm complaining. I'm just going to ignore the link and pretend that's exactly what happened.

PARALYZED BOY: Hey jerks! I'm tired of all your sympathetic looks.

ZAP! He fires stun gun.

He gets up from his wheelchair, takes a few steps and turns to the unconscious class.

PB: That's right fuckers. I can walk now.

Puts on sunglasses.

PB: Shocked? 

Turns and leaves.

A Useless Exploration

I really hate articles based on false premises. The writers who do this must realize that they are reaching. Maybe they do it to try to get readers by talking about something that's currently popular. That's the only excuse for writing an article with a headline like this:

Why 'Hunger' soared; 'Carter' bombed

Is it not obvious? What more is there to say aside from the fact that The Hunger Games is a movie based on insanely popular books with a rabid fan-base that crosses both gender and age divides while John Carter is based on novels from the early 20th century that I'm sure most people are unfamiliar with (I know I was)?

There's no need to write more than that. There's no need to write any of that because it should be clear to all parties that The Hunger Games was going to be huge and that John Carter was a risk. Do we need to explore why the Twilight movies are popular? How about Harry Potter? The only people I know who were familiar with John Carter before the movie's release are massive sci-fi geeks.

This is not a mystery.

CNN, Sexism, and Chocolate

I bring you this quote from a CNN Health article without comment:

It's every woman's dream: could chocolate, the substance that cures everything from PMS to heartbreak,  also make you skinnier?
If true, there's got to be a catch, right?

OK, one comment: Women be lovin' chocolate!

OK, another one: Does Jacques Wilson get his notions of gender identities from the funny pages? There is so much that annoys me about the above quote, that I don't know if I have the patience to delve into it. But I will say that chocolate is always good and both genders enjoy it, whether medicinally (as Wilson suggests) or recreationally.

Jacques Wilson, you're a douche and I'm sat that you're being paid by CNN to write such ignorant stuff.