SMOKY SEDUCTION

The accepted wisdom on smoking in movies:

An increasing number of films now feature lead characters who smoke. When directors portray smoking in the movies, they often use it to signal that a character is cool, rebellious or sophisticated. Research has shown that this is just the sort of message that is most effective in encouraging young people to start smoking, and for many to continue for a lifetime.

Hollywood in league with big tobacco luring the young into smoking just to make a buck. How typically American, unless of course, it's a big lefty lie:

Anti-smoking activists assert that smoking is more common in movies than it is in real life. The new study, reported in the August issue of the medical journal Chest, found that, overall, “contemporary American movies do not have a higher prevalence of smoking than the general U.S. population.” The activists complain that movies put cigarettes in the hands of attractive protagonists and link smoking to success and affluence. The Chest study found that “bad guys” were more likely to smoke than “good guys” and that, as in real life, smoking was associated with lower socioeconomic status.

“Most investigators have concluded that smoking is portrayed as glamorous and positive, but our study shows that the exact opposite is true,” says lead author Karan Omidvari, a physician at St. Michael’s Medical Center in Newark. Likewise, there was no evidence to support the idea that movie studios conspire with tobacco companies to target women or minorities.

Despite the study's findings, its authors couldn't resist the politically correct urge to call for less smoking in movies.