[icernet] Good guys light up more often

[Arul Selvan]

Indian film stars are smoking more on screen. And now it is the good guy 
who is smoking more. This was the finding of a World Health Organisation 
(WHO) study that reviewed top box-office films from 1991 to 2002. WHO's 
survey of 395 Hindi, Tamil and Telugu films showed that the instance of 
good guys smoking has gone up from 22 per cent to 53 per cent in 10 
years. Shah Rukh Khan topped the chart, having smoked or mentioned 
smoking in all his films. According to the Central Board of Film 
Certification, 15 million people watch films  on television and in 
theatres  everyday. The WHO report says that given the huge fan 
following the film industry has among the young, it has a responsibility 
to discourage life-threatening habits like tobacco use.

Source:
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_167399,00110003.htm

Bollywood blamed for teenage smoking

India's lavish and gushingly romantic Bollywood movies may be the 
world's most watched but they are also, it now appears, bad for your 
health. Three out of four films produced by India's prolific film 
industry over the past decade show their stars smoking, according to a 
new World Health Organisation survey. Teenagers who watch Bollywood 
characters smoke are three times as likely to do so themselves. If young 
people see one of their idols light up on screen they are 16 times more 
likely to think positively about smoking, the survey found. The WHO 
survey found that 76% of the most popular films produced between 1991 
and 2002 showed some form of tobacco use. In 72% of cases this was 
cigarette smoking.

But the film industry in Bombay is unlikely to react well to the survey. 
Mahesh Bhatt, one of India's leading film-makers, said tobacco 
companies, not movie stars, were to blame."When crime increases, when 
rape increases, the easiest people to blame are the movie stars. How 
long can you blame the virtual world for your real problems?"

Source:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,896911,00.html