People smoke ? so why hide it in films? | Ian Vince | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

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The American author and columnist Fletcher Knebel famously said that "smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics" but, if the announcement of new research by the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies (UKCTCS) is anything to go by, statistics on smoking and the studies that furnish them are becoming a leading cause of a zealously cautious approach to our personal welfare. Published by the British Medical Journal, the study recommends that films that feature smoking actors should automatically qualify for an 18 certificate because of the bad example they set our children. Under these recommendations, the least offensive of Cruella de Vil's many character faults would see Disney's 101 Dalmations given the same adult-only rating that a visceral, blood-pumping horror flick receives. It's undoubtedly a question of perspective: while we might argue about the artistic merits of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy of blockbusters, there are some who apparently only see it as a protracted nine and a half hour advertisement for pipe tobacco. Bridget Jones's Diary comes in for some criticism also, for its heroine's devotion to the art of extracting nicotine from Silk Cut. I can't imagine what they make of an entire canon of classic postwar movies, where unspeakably suave people wafted in and out of the frame trailed by an urbane curl of smoke. Neither can I imagine a more different scene than the al fresco tabagies that all of us – including our children – witness outside offices in fair weather and foul every day; an interesting demonstration, if one were needed, of the cigarette's fall from grace, from sophisticated to soiled, from charm to harm in less than half a century. Then, as now, the movies were merely holding a mirror up to real life, but while those days have gone and much has changed, pretending it isn't there, as this study seems to recommend, will not make it go away. It's part of a long trend of well-meaning, but flawed, initiatives, examples of which are many and varied. In 1999, the government's chief medical officer, Liam Donaldson, advised anyone who was concerned about eye safety during August's total solar eclipse to "stay inside, draw the curtains and watch it on TV". For the many who disregarded this nonsense and decided to take a rare opportunity to witness one of the quintessential marvels of nature outside, it was unfortunately rather cloudy; I can't help feeling that there were some who were overjoyed at the expense of everybody else's slight disappointment. In 2006, as if to underline the basic premise that we are not to be trusted doing the simplest things, Tayside NHS Trust printed a four-page leaflet on techniques for going to the toilet under the stirring title of Good Defecation Dynamics. It followed hot on the heels of another patronising initiative – a £250,000 campaign to warn of the wild dangers of wearing carpet slippers. Tobacco is dangerous, of course, but, its proven effects on health aside – and I speak as someone who succumbs too often to the evil weed – is it really a proportionate response to effectively censor films, or is it part of a wider and fundamentally unhealthy health campaign, one of a number of attempts to micro-manage our lives, to inflict the outcome of a monomaniacal inclination to protect us from our own foolish impulses? Does a culture of infantilisation put us at risk of losing the knack of managing risk for ourselves and our families? I'd rather talk to my children about the dangers of smoking than pretend that it doesn't exist. I'd also like them to know, when the right time comes along, that their role models in the film and music industries, as well as those closer to home, are not squeaky-clean, that we all have our strengths and weaknesses and they are part of what makes us who we are. Proselytising a perfect lifestyle will never work, much better to let teenagers become individuals who are marginally less prone to peer pressure (a far more persuasive influence than last night's blockbuster) and have the facts at their disposal.

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Does a culture of infantilisation put us at risk of losing the knack of managing risk for ourselves and our families? I'd rather talk to my children about the dangers of smoking than pretend that it doesn't exist. I'd also like them to know, when the right time comes along, that their role models in the film and music industries, as well as those closer to home, are not squeaky-clean, that we all have our strengths and weaknesses and they are part of what makes us who we are.

OTOH, they say the same thing about safe sex but it seems many parents would like to wait until they are 25 before they start brooching the subject...

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Does a culture of infantilisation put us at risk of losing the knack of managing risk for ourselves and our families?

Does a culture of concocting imaginary "cultures" infantalise us? I think it does.

Yeah but, although I disagree with slapping any ratings on any movie, you got to admit that it's particularly dumb to slap a 18 rating on any movie containing smoking...

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Well yes I can, but I can becuase it;s a specific policy suggestion, not a vague declaration about some alleged "culture" that's mysteriously "out there".

And yet you're prefectly happy to turn people buying stuff into "consumer culture"...

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I've never used the term "consumer culture", and I have repeatedly and constantly pointed out that criticisms of consumerism are not criticisms of individuals mental states.

Well okay, we'll just say "infantilism" rather than "a culture of infantilisation" and we'll be fine.

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Originally Posted by Zichao

Well okay, we'll just say "infantilism" rather than "a culture of infantilisation" and we'll be fine.

No you won't. Becuase I'm not talking about what I think other people are thinking, or a feeling in my water, or some handwavey bullshit. I'm talking about things that actually exist and can be investigated.

Conveniently:

Buyer Beware: Advertising May Seduce Your Brain, Researchers Say

ScienceDaily (Sep. 21, 2011) — Are you wooed by advertising? Of course you are. After all, it's one thing to go out and buy a new washing machine after the old one exploded, quite another to impulse-buy that 246-inch flat screen TV that just maybe, in hindsight, you didn't really need.

Advertisers come at you in two ways. There is the just-the-facts type of ad, called "logical persuasion," or LP ("This car gets 42 miles to the gallon"), and then there is the ad that circumvents conscious awareness, called "non-rational influence," or NI (a pretty woman, say, draped over a car).

Despite research surrounding the notion of neuromaketing, which studies consumers' cognitive responses to marketing stimuli, the impact on brain function of these types of real-world advertisements was unknown. Now, researchers at UCLA and George Washington University have shown that different types of advertisements evoke different levels of brain activity, depending on whether they use elements of logical persuasion or non-rational influence.

Reporting in the current online edition of the Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics, Dr. Ian Cook, a professor of psychiatry at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA, and colleagues found that brain regions involved in decision-making and emotional processing were more active when individuals viewed ads that used logical persuasion than when they viewed ads that used non-rational influence. These brain regions help us inhibit our responses to certain stimuli.

In other words, "Watch your brain and watch your wallet," Cook said. "These results suggest that the lower levels of brain activity from ads employing NI images could lead to less behavioral inhibition, which could translate to less restraint when it comes to buying products depicted in the NI advertisements."

In the study, 24 healthy adults -- 11 women and 13 men -- viewed advertising images while electrical activity in their brains was recorded using electroencephalography (EEG). Each participant was shown 24 ads that had appeared in magazines and newspapers.

Ads using LP images included a table of facts and figures about cigarette products, details about how to build a better toothbrush and suggestions about selecting food for dogs on the basis of their activity level. In contrast, sample NI-type advertisements included beading water (liquor ad), an image of an attractive woman standing with legs apart (jeans ad) and a woman leapfrogging over a fire hydrant erupting with a water spray as a man enthusiastically grins behind her (cigarette ad).

The researchers found that viewing LP images was consistently linked with significantly higher activity levels in the orbitofrontal and anterior cingulate regions, the amygdala, and the hippocampus, all areas of the brain involved in decision-making and/or emotional processing.

The finding reinforces the hypothesis that preferences for purchasing goods and services may be shaped by many factors, including advertisements presenting logical, persuasive information and those employing images or text that may modify behavior without requiring conscious recognition of a message.

"Because the results showed that in response to non-rational sensory inputs, activity was lower in areas of the brain that help us inhibit responses to stimuli," said Cook, "the findings support the conjecture that some advertisers wish to seduce, rather than persuade, consumers to buy their products."

Other authors of the study included Sarah K. Pajot, David Schairer and Andrew F. Leuchter, all of UCLA, and Clay Warren, of George Washington University. Funding was provided by the International Consciousness Research Laboratories consortium. The authors report no conflict of interest.

Buyer beware: Advertising may seduce your brain, researchers say

number children living parents adults - Recherche Google

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