Cigarette Smoking Grace Augustine
Avatar, the hit sci-fi fantasy movie, may be box office boffo, but its depiction of the 22nd century has one major black spot, it shows Americans still smoking, according to anti-tobacco groups.
The Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California, San Francisco, intends to launch an “informational campaign” aimed at what it claims is the movie’s pro-smoking message.
“This is like someone just put a bunch of plutonium in the water supply,” Center Director Stanton A. Glantz told The New York Times. Glanz said the center’s Smoke Free Movies initiative would spearhead the campaign.
The controversy involves Sigourey Weaver’s character, Grace Augustine, a tough-talking, swear-like-a-sailor scientist who also chews up Marlboros.
As an environmental scientist, no less, you would think Grace would know better. And, that’s the group’s point. The smoking scenes seem pretty gratuitous and suggests that product placement fees may have had an influence.
Film watchdog, Scenesmoking.org, gave the PG-13 rated “Avatar” a “black lung” rating for smoking in the film.
If it’s any consolation, Warner Brothers’ “Sherlock Holmes” and “The Blind Side,” the Weinstein Company’s “Nine,” Sony Pictures “Did You Hear About the Morgans?” and “The Fantastic Mr. Fox” also earned “black lung” ratings, according to the Times.
Cameron told the newspaper he had never intended Grace to be “an aspirational role model” for teenagers, even though she’s the closest thing to a human heroine in the movie. “She’s rude, she swears, she drinks, she smokes,” Cameron stated.
“Also, from a character perspective, we were showing that Grace doesn’t care about her human body, only her avatar body, which again is a negative comme’nt about people in our real world living too much in their avatars, meaning online and in video games,” he added.
Yeah right, now it makes total sense.
Cameron added: “I don’t believe in the dogmatic idea that no one in a movie should smoke. Movies should reflect reality. If it’s O.K. for people to lie, cheat, steal and kill in PG-13 movies, why impose an inconsistent morality when it comes to smoking?
“I do agree that young role-model characters should not smoke in movies, especially in a way which suggests that it makes them cooler or more accepted by their peers.”
Cameron called smoking a “filthy habit” but apparently lacks the courage of his own convictions when it comes to Big Tobacco.
