With smoking declining on screen, experts turn attention to alcohol

[nicnik]

With smoking declining on screen, experts turn attention to alcohol | Deseret News National

Quote
“While there’s still a lot of work to be done, the portrayal of smoking has fallen by nearly half as of 2014,” Koval said.

Even as smoking rates and depictions in entertainment have fallen, another problem has risen to take tobacco’s place on the silver screen: Alcohol.
<snip>
“The new frontier for us is alcohol in movies and TV,” Sargent said. “We’re in the same position today with alcohol as we once were with smoking.”
End Quote

It's all intended to protect the children. Of course, the "more research needed" claim is made, likely intended as a more socially acceptable way of asking for a handout.

How long will it be before we see pressure to eliminate overweight people from movies and TV? And how about sugary drinks? Fast food? Thanksgiving feasts? Guns? vaping products other than BT cigalikes? Parachuting? Motorcycles? Kids talking back to their teachers?

 

[Lessifer]

Looks like someone is worried about where their future paychecks are coming from, but starting a crusade against alcohol is risky business.

 

[AndriaD]

Heh... I wonder if this means they'll knock off the beer commercials during sports broadcasts. I could seriously get behind that. Even though I despise puritans and loathe control freaks, just on general principle -- the principle being, they're a pain in everyone's .....

Andria

 

[DrMA]

If we don't stop the "health" taliban now, they'll take away every one of life's joys, liberties, and freedoms. Our kids will be eating govt-approved gruel and drinking flat water. The prohibitionist lunacy of the meddling fusspots must be stopped. Now.

 

[Mossy]

ahhhhhhhh!................... makes me feel all fuzzy for those good ole days of prohibition (not).......... they always say history repeats....... it does if you don't learn from it....................d...heads

 

[Kent C]

If we don't stop the "health" taliban now, they'll take away every one of life's joys, liberties, and freedoms. Our kids will be eating govt-approved gruel and drinking flat water. The prohibitionist lunacy of the meddling fusspots must be stopped. Now.

Every regulation is a clenched fist with the arm drawn back to punch or the wielding of a knife or gun, usually aimed at vendors but consumers as well. If a person experienced this in any circumstance and had the ability to use some self-defensive measures - hit back, return fire, etc. they would be totally justified.

But all that is hidden/unspoken and is a threat, but it is only a threat as long as everyone complies. When there is no compliance, men with guns show up at your store or at your house. Some would say but 'it's the law', but the law is to protect rights not to steer preferences of some do-gooder nanny statist. IF you harm or rob someone, then men with guns will also show up - but for good reason - you've violated a right of someone, and those men with guns are there for the victim, not some do-gooder.

Every person featured in these media pieces and every junk scientist and bureaucrat in these agencies are the same as a thug with fist and an arm or a gun drawn toward you. They deserve no respect. They may be stupid or smart but they know what they are doing. Without government, they would be shunned, laughed at or hunted down, depending on how they acted with people minding their own business.

 

[Katya]

Heh... I wonder if this means they'll knock off the beer commercials during sports broadcasts. I could seriously get behind that. Even though I despise puritans and loathe control freaks, just on general principle -- the principle being, they're a pain in everyone's .....

Andria

Ban puppies and Clydesdales????????

Oh, Andria, you can't be serious!

Think about the children! Children love puppies and horsies.

 

[Katya]

How long will it be before we see pressure to eliminate overweight people from movies and TV? And how about sugary drinks? Fast food? Thanksgiving feasts? Guns? Vaping products other than BT cigalikes? Parachuting? Motorcycles? Kids talking back to their teachers?

Would it be such a bad thing? Maybe vaping could catch a break, for a change?

 

[Zurd]

Smoking is bad, vaping is bad and now a crusade will start against alcohol and then after anything we eat.

The only thing available will be Soylent Green, it will be government-approved. What could go wrong?

 

[caramel]

Without government, they would be shunned, laughed at or hunted down, depending on how they acted with people minding their own business.

They would start a sect and get government protection anyway, under a different chapter.

 

[AndriaD]

Ban puppies and Clydesdales????????

Oh, Andria, you can't be serious!

Think about the children! Children love puppies and horsies.

The puppies and Clydesdales are fine, it's those slo-mo images of that sparkling, bubbling, frosted-glass beer that always drove me completely mad, and can sometimes still drive me right out of the room.

Andria

 

[caramel]

The puppies and Clydesdales are fine, it's those slo-mo images of that sparkling, bubbling, frosted-glass beer that always drove me completely mad, and can sometimes still drive me right out of the room.

Andria

Imagine warm, fizzled out, stale beer. You don't want any.

 

[AndriaD]

Imagine warm, fizzled out, stale beer. You don't want any.

Actually I just imagine the nausea the next morning would bring... that's worked for over 22 yrs now.

Andria

 

[caramel]

Actually I just imagine the nausea the next morning would bring... that's worked for over 22 yrs now.

Andria

That would cost me a lot of replacement TV screens

 

[Endor]

If we don't stop the "health" taliban now, they'll take away every one of life's joys, liberties, and freedoms. Our kids will be eating govt-approved gruel and drinking flat water. The prohibitionist lunacy of the meddling fusspots must be stopped. Now.

I had a conversation with my wife many, many years ago when indoor smoking bans started in California. There was a tremendous amount of anti-tobacco sentiment going around, mainly because the lapdog media was all over the stories.

I said: "You watch. This is the top of a slippery slide. First it's smoking, next it will be alcohol, and next will be controlling what you eat. Fatty food is bad for you, so we're going to ban it. We don't like you eating animals, so we're going to ban that too. You watch, it will happen, because people are letting it happen."

SInce then, we've seen an attack on vaping (vaping didn't exist, by the way, when I had the conversation above), an FDA that is poised to completely ban Oreo cookies as we know them (trans fats), and the beginning of the anti-alcohol movement (again... didn't we try this before?).

I was only wrong in that I thought alcohol attacks would be before the attacks on our food.

 

[caramel]

With fresh memories of the prohibition, alcohol was left alone for a while. it will come back though at the right moment.

 

[AndriaD]

With fresh memories of the prohibition, alcohol was left alone for a while. it will come back though at the right moment.

Actually, in America, alcohol has been under the gun for a long time -- in Russia, and some places in Europe, nothing at all is thought of having a drink at work -- in America, that would get you fired. But it's more because of these nannies, I think, than anything "political" -- the 12-step groups' insistence that "once an addict, always an addict" is very pervasive in America, along with the [erroneous] moral judgment that if you're an addict, you're just BAAAAAAAAAD, you have some moral failing that renders you ineligible for anything.

Anyone see Letterman and Bill Murray chugging on a bottle of vodka last night?

Andria

 

[caramel]

Sometime around '95 I worked with a small company in Montreal, Quebec (some 10 employees) and it was not uncommon that they take lunch with the boss at some small restaurant around and have a beer with the meal. Also their boss was picking up the tab from time to time, randomly.

These days in Ontario you can get fired for an empty can in your car parked on the company's lot. Doesn't matter that you're completely sober and could pass an alcohol test with flying colors.

 

[EBates]

In God We Trust, The Government No Way!

 

[nicnik]

Censorship in the arts is dangerous. We already have too much of it.

I don't enjoy violent movies in general, so I almost always avoid them. I even like to complain that it's often used as a cheap way to draw a crowd, and that I wish there were more movies that don't just include it gratuitously. But care needs to be taken not to cross the line of censorship in reaction to fears of it's negative societal influence.

I still to this day, cannot believe that we actually insist on keeping "bad language" away from the ears of minors, when they watch movies and listen to songs. It's counter productive socially to do so, and it takes a bite out of free artistic expression.