The tobacco industry, with its endless evil genius campaigns to develop new addicts — the “flavored tobacco pellets,” loaded with nicotine, which look and dissolve like Tic-Tacs, for example — does not need any help luring children to its products. That’s why many health advocacy groups object to
the new animated movie “Rango.” It’s chock full of smoking.
The movie includes at least 60 instances of characters smoking, said Kori Titus, CEO of the nonprofit Breathe California, USA Today reported. But all those images aren’t a problem, says the movie’s maker, Paramount Pictures.
Spokeswoman Virginia Lam said that the title character never smokes. “The images of smoking in the film … are portrayed by supporting characters and are not intended to be celebrated or emulated,” she said.
Apparently Paramount has missed the research that all images of smoking, whether designed to be romantic and cool, or gritty and addictive, can influence people to smoke, especially young people. Numerous studies, including a 2008 report by the National Cancer Institute, state that exposure to smoking on the big screen promotes smoking in young Americans, Newsweek reported in August. Every day, 4,000 Americans between the ages of 12 and 17 smoke their first cigarette, according the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
So, when making an animated movie, why include smoking at all? Well, in this case, because it’s a Western, and characters in Westerns smoke. And in an animated movie about a lizard cowboy, one would of course want to portray the smoking. Otherwise it might not ring true.
What chaps our hide is that “Rango” isn’t aimed at children, despite the marketing. With all its references to old Westerns, many reviewers say kids are rather left behind, and other references are too adult in nature.
But “Rango” director Gore Verbinski made it clear he didn’t make the picture for kids. In an interview with Kentwired.com, he says:
“I would say I definitely feel like ‘Rango’ is a Western. I just think that animation is constantly referred to as a genre that’s for kids and moms. And I don’t know where that comes from. Why does animation have to be linked with Happy Meals, you know? It’s just a technique to tell a story…”
So apparently this is an animated film made for … men.
Asked how Johhny Depp felt about the role, Verbinski replies: I said, “I’m going to smoke on this animated movie about a lizard with an identity crisis” and he (Depp) just went “Fantastic, let’s do that.”
“Smoke” means “work fast,” right? Or just a lot of animated smoking?
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