FILM INDUSTRY BUTT OF CRITICISM.

Byline: Mary Lou Auerlio City News Service

A professor told a state Senate panel convened at the Screen Actors Guild offices Monday that smoking by major film characters has risen dramatically in the '90s, and that teens are mimicking what they see.

Stanton A. Glantz, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, presented findings of a study that charts tobacco use in films since 1960.

``Tobacco use in movies fell in the 1960s and '70s and reached a minimum around 1980. Smoking in movies increased rapidly in the 1990s,'' Glantz said.

During this decade, Glantz said, 57 percent of the major characters smoked, compared to 14 percent of similar individuals in the general population.

For the years 1991-96, 80 percent of the male leads and 27 percent of female leads smoked, he said.

``Tobacco use in films is increasing at a time (when) it is falling in society at large,'' Glantz said.

``Films continue to present a smoker, who is typically white, male, middle-class, successful and attractive,'' Glantz said.

In reality, smokers tend to be poor and less educated, he said. And, he added, teen smoking rates seem to be tracking along with the rise in smoking on screen.

While teen smoking is lower in California than the country as a whole, there has been a recent increase in the state, too, he said.

Glantz's remarks and the hearing itself came in the wake of first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton's public complaint a few weeks ago that Julia Roberts' character in ``My Best Friend's Wedding'' seemed to smoke constantly.

According to the Glantz report, the percentage of 15-17-year-olds in California addicted to tobacco increased from 9.9 percent in 1993 to 12.1 percent in 1996.

Glantz said there are other societal reasons for the increase in teen smoking, including:

More aggressive and effective marketing and promotion by the tobacco industry.

A shift from former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop's ``smoke-free society'' campaign to targeting children specifically.

The purposeful destruction of the state's anti-tobacco education program.

Before the hearing, Sen. John Burton, D-San Francisco, said he does not support laws to keep smoking out of movies, but wants the industry to think before ``giving'' a character a cigarette.

``Smoking in movies is on the increase and it does make it more attractive to young people,'' said Burton, chairman of the state Senate Judiciary Committee.

Burton said the industry took the lead on the seat belt issue, and he would like to see it show the consequences of smoking. He suggested an anti-smoking disclaimer that could be shown during movie previews.

Richard Masur, president of the Screen Actors Guild, believes legislation is neither necessary nor appropriate.

Masur conceded ``a cigarette is the best prop on Earth when you don't have anything to do with your hands,'' but said the industry also should show the reality and consequences of smoking.

Connie Pechmann, an associate professor at the University of California, Irvine, said a 1997 UCI study showed that ``youths are enamored by smoking in movies. To them, smoking is forbidden fruit. Thus, movie scenes with smoking are titillating.

``Movies fundamentally change youths' perceptions of a typical smoker and create misconceptions,'' Pechmann said. ``They see a false image of smoking as smart, sexy, even virtuous.''

She said Burton's call for an anti-smoking ad immediately before a movie was backed up by the study.

``An anti-smoking ad before . . . caused a substantial drop in the percentage of youths who were pro-smoking, from 30 percent to 23 percent,'' Pechmann said.