Case had claimed that tobacco imagery in films led to 200,000 children a year becoming smokers, but judge ruled that studios are not legally responsible

Hollywood film producers have beaten a lawsuit which alleged that the depiction of tobacco use in films rated as appropriate for children led directly to deaths from smoking.

How Hollywood stars of the golden age were bankrolled to praise tobacco Read more

A class action launched by Timothy Forsyth claimed that the rating system used by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) amounted to misrepresentation, since it was established that viewing tobacco imagery caused children to smoke.

“In 2012 the surgeon general concluded that the scientific evidence established that exposure of children to tobacco imagery in films causes children to smoke,” the lawsuit said.

“In 2014, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded based upon the scientific evidence that if defendants continued to assign the PG and PG-13 ratings to films with tobacco imagery the youth ratings would cause 3.2 million children to become addicted to nicotine and one million of those children would die prematurely from tobacco related diseases.”

In its defence, the MPAA, a trade body that represents the six major Hollywood studios, argued that film ratings amount to opinions, and cited the first amendment protecting freedom of speech. It said the ratings system is not intended to “prescribe socially-appropriate values”, but to offer guidance based on what most American parents would think about a film’s suitability for children.

Forsyth contended that all films depicting smoking should receive the restrictive R rating, meaning that anyone under 17 should be accompanied to cinemas by a parent or guardian.

Films portraying smoking should get adult rating, says WHO Read more

“Saying that some material ‘may’ not be suitable when defendants know that some material is not suitable – that it will kill kids by the hundreds of thousands – is false and misleading,” the lawsuit claimed.

But the judge rejected that argument. The Hollywood Reporter quoted him as saying: “Forsyth insists that a rating less stringent than R is a representation that ‘the film is suitable for children under 17 unaccompanied by a parent or guardian’. The ratings plainly make no such representations. Rather, the PG and PG-13 ratings caution parents that material in such movies may be inappropriate for children … as such, neither intentional nor negligent misrepresentation claims are tenable as pleaded.”

The World Health Organisation has called in the past for films featuring smoking to be restricted to adult audiences, noting that 44% of all Hollywood films, and 36% of films rated for young people in 2014 contained smoking.

There have been laws in place restricting paid product placement of tobacco since 1998, and the MPAA’s rating system has taken instances of smoking into account since 2007.

The ratings board, which is made up of parents, now considers three questions where smoking is depicted: whether it is pervasive in the film, whether it glamorises the act, and whether there is a historic or other mitigating context.