COMMENTARY : Actors Need to Carry Social Responsibility to the Screen : Movies: Stars should realize that portraying characters who drink and smoke sends the wrong message to children.

It’s Academy Awards time again and, as Elvis once said, I can feel my temperature risin’.

Do you recall last year that some of the Academy Awards show organizers got upset when Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon made impromptu political statements on behalf of 266 HIV-positive Haitian refugees being held by the U.S. military in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba? Or that Richard Gere upset some people when he used the occasion to speak out about human rights abuses in China? No one questioned the validity of the causes that were invoked, but a lot of people thought the Oscar ceremony wasn’t the place for political rhetoric.

As I watch the ceremony Monday night, I expect to see Hollywood’s best and brightest wearing ribbons and mentioning the homeless, rain forests, Haitians and other noble causes, just like they do year after year.

What bothers me is that these are the same people who, movie after movie, portray characters who smoke and consume alcohol in nearly every scene, sending a very dangerous message to impressionable young movie-goers (read: Target Audience). Hollywood’s stars know these products are physically and mentally harmful, and highly addictive, yet they continue to promote their use. I think many of the folks I’ll see at the Oscars are hypocrites who don’t practice true social responsibility.

About the only Hollywood stars I can remember who didn’t smoke or drink alcohol in their films had names like Bambi, Willy or Old Yeller.

And surely it’s not an accident that when smoking and drinking are portrayed in movie after movie, brand names are often clearly displayed. Who’s paying for that?

Let me share a few recent statistics with you.

According to the Feb. 24 surgeon general’s report, 434,000 Americans die every year from lung cancer attributed directly to smoking, and studies have shown that thousands of non-smokers die each year from second-hand smoke. Fully one-third of today’s high school students will be addicted to tobacco by the time they graduate, and almost all adult smokers took their first drag before their high school graduation.

And each year, 100,000 Americans die from the effects of alcohol.

What would be socially responsible is for actors and actresses, major and minor, smoker and non-smoker, drinker and non-drinker, to have written into their contract the following clauses:

“(1) Unless it can be proven to be absolutely necessary for character development or the integrity of a particular scene, the character I portray will not smoke, consume alcohol, use illegal drugs or engage in unprotected sex.

“(2) Tobacco, alcohol and drug brand names shall not be included in any scene in the film, nor shall they be included in any advertisements shown in theaters before or after the film. Tobacco, alcohol and drug products (but not brand names) shall only be permitted when judged absolutely necessary to the integrity of a particular scene.”

As a high school social studies teacher for 24 years, I would be the last person to suggest any law smacking of censorship of the arts. I would never support any legislation that hinted at chipping away at the First Amendment.

However, as a parent and as coordinator of the Student Assistance Program at South Gate High School, where I see the results of alcohol, tobacco and drug abuse every day in the support groups we offer our students and parents, I am extremely frustrated and angered by the hypocrisy and callousness of the film industry.

Hollywood is made up of powerful people who influence tens of millions, powerful people who could choose to take a stand and make a difference. Instead, they too often choose to suck up to the nearest dollar bill wrapped around a cigarette or a can of beer.

Isn’t it time for Hollywood’s brightest stars to (1) recognize the seriousness of the problems of alcohol, tobacco and drug abuse, (2) admit their influence has contributed to these problems, and (3) take meaningful and appropriate action against them?

Who would like to be first? How about Susan Sarandon, who smoked and drank her way through “Thelma & Louise” and who last year made her statement about 266 Haitians? Ms. Sarandon, I’ll send you a “Thank You” card signed by a few thousand young people and a dozen red roses.

Cohan is in charge of the Impact program at South Gate High School, a student support program that the Los Angeles Unified School District has proposed cutting back in the 1994-95 school year.