Personally, I think its a load of crap that films would get an R just for showing smoking. I'd love to see the warning thing, you know, that tells you what the movie was rated R for, and see smoking there.

Anyone else find this mildly stupid?

I do. But it's funny because I was thinking about it yesterday while I was watching "Running With Scissors" And there was basically a cigarette, or some form of tobacco being smoked more than 75% of the entire movie, certainly did make it look good, (then again it's 'R' anyway).

PG-13 movies tend to have small characters who smokes, so I don't think it's ever on screen long enough to leave any sort of effect on kids, and PG and G movies tend to have a villian, or hated character, who smokes, so already I doubt taking them out will help anything.

Yes, mildly stupid. Movies with more than one cigarette per character should only have a PG-17 rating. Which is kinda a stupid suggestion for improving matters.

To me, seeing movies that depict real-life are all the more powerful. It used to be a really big thing that we just 'assumed' every on-screen character took a dump or even a bath while pregnant. Was tickled really to see Demi Moore break both of those 'barriers' (in Indecent Proposal and The Seventh Sign, respectively)

A character's persona is sometimes defined by their little habits. On House M.D., he pops his little pain pills every so often. Is that not increasing exposure to bad personal practices? And aren't overusing prescription drugs a little more cause for concern?

In Constantine, Keanu Reeve's character smoked a lot of fags (a.k.a. cigs). After going through Hell in the most literal sense, apparently he was addicted to the smell of smoke or found it soothing and the least threatening aspect. He could have ran around the entire movie barefoot, but that would have ruined the effects they were achieving with apparel.

A lot of those in the medical profession and law enforcement smoke. Keeping movies true to life will be harder if you can't truly reflect the bad habits of the ones we are supposed to look up to as heroes. Makes you wonder how many fire-fighters smoke in bed, perhaps?

I don't think they should rate movies R because they show people smoking.

But they should raise taxes on cigarettes. And raise income taxes on cigarette companies (they'll complain about discrimination, but that's their problem for making profit by destroying people's health). And the gov't should use that additional money to educate people about the dangers of cigarette. While they're at it, they should also ban smoking in bars, like Québec's gov't has done recently.

I hate cigarette. We can't really ban it. It should just never have been invented.

This is a toughie for me, because I don't think seeing people smoke is on par with blood, gore, and sex - I mean, we see it in real life often. I personally have never smoked, but maybe these teens are more impressionable than I remember being.

I see where they're coming from, if you buy into the whole social construction of reality sorta idea, which I do to some extent. But at the same time, I seriously doubt that seeing cigs in a movie, will make people suddenly start smoking. In real life, some people smoke, some don't; I think both are well represented in movies. And its kind of absurd to make a film "R" just because, people are smoking in it.

One could make a similar argument of sex though.

Some people have sex and others don't. That shouldn't affect a films rating either...

That being said I tend to agree with you that if smoking on screen is the only thing that's going on in the movie I don't think it would deserve an R rating.