County’s Oscar Message: Keep Smoke Out of Films

Los Angeles officials usually roll out the red carpet for Hollywood.

But this Oscar season, they’re rolling out billboards that aim to shame the hometown industry before the eyes of the world.

In the run-up to Sunday’s 77th Academy Awards ceremony, the Los Angeles County public health agency is paying for three mobile billboards that demand that movie makers keep images of smoking out of their films.

The billboards feature the face of a child next to the slogan, “The whole world is watching. Keep smoking out of youth-rated movies.”

Researchers at Dartmouth University recently estimated that more than half of new smokers take up the habit because they are influenced by the depiction of tobacco use in films, said Dr. Jonathan Fielding, Los Angeles County’s public health director.

Fielding said he hopes the campaign will persuade the film industry to devote as much attention to the issue of tobacco use among children as it has given to other health causes, such as AIDS. “There is a real opportunity for the industry ... to really make a difference in this terrible epidemic of tobacco use among youth,” he said.

Fielding also called on the industry to give movies that show smoking an R-rating so that children will not be admitted to theaters to watch them.