Monday, November 10, 2008

Smoking, sex, HIV and the movies

There was a recent news story bemoaning the frequency of smoking in PG13 movies and the deleterious effect that has on the young people of today. The outrage, it seems, is that in 67% of all PG13 movies smoking is presented in a less than negative way and of course we all know how bad smoking is for our health and all the dollars spent on the related problems. How can the movie industry be so insensitive? Conversely there was a recent story about a high school in St. Louis in which as many as 50 kids have been exposed to the HIV virus. When offered free confidential HIV testing 97% of the students opted to get tested. National statistics show that 65 million people are inflicted with an incurable sexually transmitted disease (STD), 19 million people every year acquire a STD, there are 3 million unplanned pregnancies a year of which 750,000 are teenagers leading to 1.5 million abortions a year. I have a question: Where is the outcry here? Why are we so concerned about smoking in the movies and not the fact that in 90% of all movies sex is casual, unsafe and hooking up is portrayed as the normal thing two adults or kids do when there is a spark of interest between them. What kind of message is that? It boggles my mind that it's not okay to light up but its okay to hook up in the movies. Now we have a high school where 50 kids may now be part of that 65 million person statistic. Somehow I wonder if we really care about each other or our kids. Sadly, neither story surprises me any more.

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