Did you know that in 1965 Walt Disney a life-long
chain smoker died of lung cancer? He was 65 when he passed away. Walt Disney
was cremated and his ashes were spread throughout. Now, 60 years later, the
Walt Disney Company involves smoking and second-hand smoking in classical
Disney movies.
I had never realized how tobacco smoking was introduced to me ever since I was a little kid. Doing anti-tobacco research made me realize that in Disney movies there were a lot of scenes that exposed smoking. Pinocchio, Alice in Wonderland, the Little Mermaid, 101 Dalmatians, and Peter Pan are just some of the many movies that have smoking or second-hand smoking scenes throughout the movie. These are Disney movies that I have loved and they all have exposed smoking to us. Statistics now say that 800,000 smokers in the United States are ages 12-17. I wouldn’t find it surprising if they got influenced form movie scenes that exposed smoking. Youth rated movies should not expose and type of smoking to children because it only influences them to do something that can kill them. Walk Disney’s relationship with smoking had a big part in his movies. There have been many studies done proving that showing younger children movies with smoking will increase their risk of smoking when they are older. When children see their favorite character with a cigarette in their mouth the children get the wrong idea about the harsh side effects of cigarettes. All they see is how cool their favorite character looks when they are smoking that cigarette not about the health problems it may cause. There needs to be more strict rules or ratings on movies. It may not seem harmful at the time when a child sees smoking constantly in movies but studies show that there is a chance they will smoke and have to deal with terrible health related issues later on in their life.
I had never realized how tobacco smoking was introduced to me ever since I was a little kid. Doing anti-tobacco research made me realize that in Disney movies there were a lot of scenes that exposed smoking. Pinocchio, Alice in Wonderland, the Little Mermaid, 101 Dalmatians, and Peter Pan are just some of the many movies that have smoking or second-hand smoking scenes throughout the movie. These are Disney movies that I have loved and they all have exposed smoking to us. Statistics now say that 800,000 smokers in the United States are ages 12-17. I wouldn’t find it surprising if they got influenced form movie scenes that exposed smoking. Youth rated movies should not expose and type of smoking to children because it only influences them to do something that can kill them. Walk Disney’s relationship with smoking had a big part in his movies. There have been many studies done proving that showing younger children movies with smoking will increase their risk of smoking when they are older. When children see their favorite character with a cigarette in their mouth the children get the wrong idea about the harsh side effects of cigarettes. All they see is how cool their favorite character looks when they are smoking that cigarette not about the health problems it may cause. There needs to be more strict rules or ratings on movies. It may not seem harmful at the time when a child sees smoking constantly in movies but studies show that there is a chance they will smoke and have to deal with terrible health related issues later on in their life.
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