Just FYI: The Smoking in 'Gran Torino' Was Done for Free
Filed under: Celebrities and Controversy, Fandom, DIY/Filmmaking
Near the end of the closing credits for Clint Eastwood's new Gran Torino is a disclaimer that caught my attention. It reads as follows:"No person or entity associated with this film received payment or anything of value, or entered into any agreement, in connection with the depiction of tobacco products."
In other words: Some of the characters smoke in this movie, but that was our choice. The tobacco industry didn't pay us off.
According to the site Smoke Free Movies, which makes some excellent points but tends to go overboard (they think any film with smoking should automatically be rated R), the disclaimer is a recent addition to Warner Bros. products. It started appearing on Warner DVDs of movies that contain smoking at the beginning of 2008, and was added to smoky theatrical releases this fall. Gran Torino was the first time I'd noticed it, but I don't always stay for the credits.
The site also reports that Universal Pictures (at the behest of its parent company, General Electric) has started including a somewhat weaker disclaimer on its movies that contain smoking: "The depictions of tobacco smoking contained in this film are based solely on artistic consideration and are not intended to promote tobacco consumption." Note that they don't say they weren't paid off by the tobacco industry, only that they didn't intend for it to encourage people to smoke.
The reason this is a big deal is that for decades, the tobacco companies DID pay for product placement in films. Eileen Heyes' book Tobacco USA notes that Philip Morris paid about $42,000 for Lois Lane to smoke Marlboros in Superman II, and that Sylvester Stallone got half a million bucks to use Brown & Williamson (now part of R.J. Reynolds) tobacco products in five films in the 1980s.
Congress started to crack down on the practice in 1990, and Big Tobacco now claims innocence. But they claimed innocence then, too, even though internal documents proved otherwise; as Smoke Free Movies points out, why should we believe them now? That's why they say the Warner Bros. disclaimer is necessary -- to certify to the public that nothing shady is going on.
Assuming we can believe the disclaimer, I actually do take some comfort in knowing that Clint Eastwood's character smokes in Gran Torino only as an artistic choice. It makes sense for the character, a grizzled old Korean War veteran, to be a smoker and tobacco-chewer, and his health problems figure into the story. It would be disappointing if Eastwood had included that detail only because some tobacco company suggested it, don't you think? As for how much Ford paid to have its Gran Torino figure so prominently, well, that's another matter.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
12-29-2008 @ 7:00PM
Jonathan Polansky said...
All the studios have been asked to include a no-payoffs certification in final credits of their future films with smoking. So far, only Time Warner has agreed to do so. Universal's language looks like a joke written by lawyers. Twenty years ago, a Bond film took a bag of money from Philip Morris and then, in the final crawl, quoted the Surgeon General against smoking. Let's see if any of you nascent screenwriters out there can recreate that studio discussion for us.
Big Tobacco has played footsie with Hollywood for six of the last eight decades; there's documented proof in the tobacco companies own files. Since everyone in Hollywood likes to claim this isn't happening "any more," why won't they sign a statement to that effect? Shouldn't we all know the score?
Gran Torino is rated R, so Smoke Free Movies has no beef with it. It had no trouble with Good Night, And Good Luck (rated PG) either, because the proposed R-rating for smoking has two categorical exceptions: actual historical figures who smoked (like Edward R. Murrow) and depictions of the dire health consequences of tobacco use. The latter is almost unheard of in U.S. films, though smoking is the #1 killer in the country. So much for realism. But then, realism is the kind of thing that can spoil a placement deal.
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12-30-2008 @ 1:59AM
Sy said...
if smoking is considered rated R, then come January, we will have a rated R White House for at least the next 4 years. As you know, Barack Obama is a big smoker.
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12-30-2008 @ 11:31AM
Gilbert Davis said...
Lord have mercy - you know, anytime smoking shows up in movies the American Taliban Nanny State yahoos come out of the woodwork to militantly scream and have their tantrums over it. You know, like the movie 'Wanted' - horribly violent, heads exploding from 'cool' headshots and guns blazing everywhere - actually glorifying guns and the using of guns to shoot people. Not a word since there isn't any smoking in the movie, but heck - if folks are smoking, you know, like they do in real life, it's screaming for R ratings and banning pictures of people smoking, they even took the cigarette out of Betty Davis' hand for the US Stamp of her. For goodness sakes, how ridiculous.
Come on now, let's just go back to the rules of the fifties and cherry pick our favorite banned behaviors - double beds for married folks and no sex allowed, and let's make like smoking doesn't exist, that's a goodie, take out the booze cause booze is mad ummkay? All those fattie movies must be banned and eating cheeseburgers banned cause you know, fat is bad for you and we must protect you from you. Stabbing, shooting, terrorizing young half naked women, blowing people up - those are still okay. Okay?
Hey now - is the movie any good? I hear there is smoking in it so we must boycott it. Also I hear rumors that there is a gas powered gas guzzling car in the movie, somebody alert Al Gore.
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