Blog 16: Revision of CAT 2

  
     In “Imitation of Film: Here’s Smoking at You Kid, author Nicholas Balakar points out why R-rated movies which contain images of actors smoking have a direct influence on why children, ages 10-14 pick up smoking. I agree with Balakar’s notion because as a young child myself I picked smoking at about the age of 12 because of what I saw in movies such as “Cheech and Chong” and “New Jack City” to name a few. “Cheech and Chong” was funny movie but it was based completely on smoking. “New Jack City” was about a drug dealer who portrayed gangster image and he smoked cigarettes throughout the movie. It was an image I would have killed for. All in all these two movies contained scenes where these popular actors were smoking hence give me the impression that smoking was the cool and the thing to do.
     
     To illustrate, Balakar states researchers say thirty eight percent of children who start smoking do so because of the influence these movies have on them. I think movies do have a lot to do with young children’s actions.  For example, I watched a movie called “Carlito’s Way”.  After viewing this movie I wanted to portray Carlito’s reputation in real life. His reputation was that of high standards. He was feared, well respected, and admired by his peers. The fact that Carlito had such an influence on me relates to Balakar’s point on why children pick up smoking because of movies.
    
     Moving on, Dr. James D. Sargent says, “R-Rated contain twice as much smoking” as other films. From my experience as young child I find this to be true. I remember watching R-rated movies as a young child and they were plenty of negative images I think I was not supposed to be seeing. Some of the movies I saw were Clint Eastwood, Pink Cadillac“, and “Unforgiven”. The scenes showed actors with guns, actors using drugs, and actors smoking. I thought the actors were cool and somewhat iconic. It made me believe that these images were ok and that maybe I should smoke or use a gun. My parents should have played a better role in restricting my selection of movies to watch. Maybe the influence from these movies and images of actors smoking could have been prevented my intentions to portray them by smoking.
   
     In conclusion, the images portrayed in movies can directly influence you to act based on what you see. It is evident that movies play a large role in what young children do in their everyday lives.

Till Next time......