Dr. Sue Hubbard Believes Movies Like Avatar Tempt Kids to Smoke

Dr. Grace Augustine in Avatar (blogcdn.com)

The big winner at Sunday’s 67th annual Golden Globes was James Cameron’s Avatar, coming away with awards for best dramatic picture and best director. But the reviews were a little tougher earlier in the month, when the movie received a notorious “black lung” award from Scenesmoking.org.

Despite accolades all-around from Hollywood, anti smokers are critical of Sigourney Weaver’s character, Dr. Grace Augustine. The lusty, swearing environmental scientist sucks down endless Marlboro’s throughout the movie while heroically attempting to save the moon Pandora. Protestors accuse the film of providing the equivalent of $50 million in free tobacco advertising reports The New York Times.

Cameron’s response is, “I don’t believe in the dogmatic idea that no one in a movie should smoke. Movies should reflect reality. If it’s okay for people to lie, cheat, steal and kill in PG-13 movies, why impose an inconsistent morality when it comes to smoking?….”

“We were showing that Grace doesn’t care about her human body, only her avatar body,” Cameron said. Dr. Augustine’s smoking and carelessness “is a negative comment about people in our real world living too much in their avatars, meaning online and in video games.”

Dr. Sue Hubbard (kidsdr.com)

Anti smokers are appalled at his reply, considering research has shown that PG-13 movies account for 2 out of 3 scenes involving tobacco which are regularly delivered to audiences of all ages. A third to a half of all new teenage smokers is a result of smoking in movies, the imagery reinforcing established behavior in adolescents. In August of 2008 The National Cancer Institute concluded that movies with smoking cause children to smoke.

Dr. Sue Hubbard in her online column, The Kid’s Doctor, expressed her concern about teenage smoking.

“There are still thousands of kids every day who begin smoking as young as 11 or 12 years of age. Statistics show that 50 percent of high school teens will have smoked sometimes in their life…and continue to smoke. It’s glamorized in movies and in ads…but the consequences are never shown. We in the media need to educate, not glamorize or fail to report the consequences.”

According to Vitals.com, Dr. Hubbard received her medical degree and completed her residency at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston.

The New York Times reported earlier this month that Stanton A. Glantz, director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education believes that Sigourney’s smoking performance was “… like someone just put a bunch of plutonium in the water supply.”

Glantz is leading an anti-smoking informational campaign directed at Avatar. This is part of UCSF’s ongoing  “smoke free movies” effort to discourage smoking in films because of the influence on the young. The foundation was established with money from a 1998 settlement of legal claims between tobacco companies and 46 states.

READ MORE ABOUT DR. SUE HUBBARD

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