Any smoking in your script? You might wanna rethink that

Yeah this has been worrying me lots.

No kidding.

How the heck are we supposed to show who's a good girl and who's a bad girl if the bad girls can't smoke?

And yeah, you're screwed, best start thinking of alternative jokes: her mangy cat knocking over a candle because the old lady refuses to burn electricity, teens tripping and falling face-first into cow pies in the dark, etc.

-Derek

Just write the script and let the suits decide what to keep and what to change.

They can always argue to the ratings board that those smoking elements show negative results (see what happens if you smoke-- you'll burn your house down.)

A good script won't get rejected because of one or few logistical elements, only if the sum of the questionable elements in question are greater than the quality of the story.

changing the ratings because of smoking just sounds like a creative variation of a cigarette tax. but since it's a movie you can just choose not to have it. how difficult is that?!

anyhoo - i think having someone "go postal" and entering a school or business and shooting up innocent people will have a greater negative effect these days.

dpat - good girls don't enjoy being too sexy and bad girls are hot and horny.

NikeeGoddess said:

dpat - good girls don't enjoy being too sexy and bad girls are hot and horny.

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Ah, the voice of experience! Thanks.

-Derek

You know...I'm sure Political Correctness was started with the noblest of intentions, but like any noble intention, there's always some moron who takes the ball and runs with it to the point of it becoming not only ludicrous, but extreme and nonsensical.

I can understand things like nudity, drug use, coarse language or graphic violence having an effect on a film's rating. But smoking???

Here's the part that left me not knowing whether to laugh or cry:

There is broad awareness of smoking as a unique public health concern due to nicotine's highly addictive nature, and no parent wants their child to take up the habit. The appropriate response of the rating system is to give more information to parents on this issue.

So, broadcast news airs images and footage of bodies ravaged by war, baby-killing mothers and Paris getting her sentence reduced before serving a single day in jail because she's famous for having done absolutely nothing, but the MPAA is raising a fuss over cigarettes in movies? I'm left wondering what kind of valuable information they have to share that's not already been divulged by medical professionals such as doctors, nurses and addiction counselors.

Maybe it's time the parent said, "Hey, junior, don't smoke because it's bad for you and if you don't believe me, here's a pamphlet from the doctor's office telling you so" instead of allowing the media to do their jobs for them.

End of mini-rant. Apologies. It just that this kind of thing really, really irritates me. The world's going to hell in a politically correct handbasket.

Plot Device said:

I am personally opposed to smoking. But this development will have a negative impact on my scripts.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117964655.html?categoryid=1622&cs=1

In my current script, an old lady accidentally sets fire to her own house with her cigarette. Then genre is dramatic comedy and my target is that this film get a PG-13 rating. Would they bump it to an R on me because of her smoking???? --or worse! --would a studio reject the script because of the smoking?? I also have a scene where a bunch of teenagers are partying and smoking out in a cow pasture, and one of them tosses his cigarette and it ignites a pile of manure.

All of this is supposed to be funny. And both of these accidental incendiary events are important to the plot so I can't remove either instance of smoking or everything falls to pieces.

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" and depictions that glamorize smoking or movies that feature pervasive smoking outside of a historic or other mitigating context may receive a higher rating."



Sounds like jokes would work unless extremists win and all smoking is restricted.