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Scene Smoking: Cigarettes, Cinema & the Myth of Cool

Instructor’s Guide for College

Pre-Viewing Activities

Pretest: Administer Scene Smoking—Your Opinions to assess students’ knowledge, attitudes, and opinions about artists’ rights, the First Amendment, social responsibility, and tobacco use in films and on television. Have students discuss their responses.

Post-Viewing Activities

I. Discussion Questions

1. Does the First Amendment protect filmmakers’ and actors’ freedom to depict anything they choose?
2. What might be some constraints on artists’ rights (e.g., Motion Picture Association of American [MPAA] ratings, Broadcast Standards & Practices)?
3. What role does social responsibility play in tobacco use depiction in films? Censorship?
4. What is accurate, appropriate depiction of tobacco use; what is inaccurate, inappropriate depiction of tobacco use?
5. Would on-screen tobacco use create any health issues on the set?
6. If a tobacco company offered funding for a film project that you were working on, would you take the money offered? Why?
7. In general, if smoking were removed from a scene in a movie, would the scene be the same or different? If different, how? Give an example.
8. What is your opinion of actors being paid to use a particular brand of cigarette in a film?
9. What characteristics does smoking create on-screen? What other ways could they be shown?

II. Situations to Consider

• In My Best Friend’s Wedding, Julia Roberts portrays a food critic who chain-smokes throughout the film. The film is a PG-rated family comedy. Discuss other choices the actress could have made to demonstrate tension. Is smoking a necessary choice in this film? Does the actress have the right to make this choice despite the intended audience?
• Director Michael Bay consistently makes blockbuster films that have no tobacco portrayals. Pearl Harbor was widely criticized for having no smoking in it despite the era featured. However, smoking rates were lower before the United States entered WWII than they are today. Discuss the director’s right to make such choices and the need for accurate research when depicting tobacco historically.
• In the film Volcano, John Carol Lynch decided NOT to smoke even though his character was written as a smoker. Discuss the acting choice to resist smoking rather than to light up and the benefits and downfalls associated with such a choice.

III. Follow-up Evalution

Administer Scene Smoking—Your Opinions again during a later class session. Have students discuss how their opinions, knowledge, and attitudes changed after viewing the documentary.

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