DVDs to include ads on danger of smoking

SACRAMENTO —  When actor William Hurt puffs on a cigar in the upcoming DVD version of “The Incredible Hulk,” it will be after viewers have been warned that what he is doing isn’t cool.

Under fire for the prevalence of smoking in films, four Hollywood studios have agreed to include anti-smoking messages at the beginning of DVDs for future films rated G, PG or PG-13 in which there is tobacco use. The ads were produced by the state of California from tobacco tax funds.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has been known to chomp on a cigar or two in his blockbuster films, says it may be the best way of persuading kids not to emulate what they see on the screen.

“By agreeing to include our anti-smoking ads in the opening minutes of DVDs that contain tobacco use, we will reach millions of young movie viewers with a proven anti-smoking message at no expense to taxpayers,” the governor said.

Schwarzenegger is scheduled to appear in Hollywood today at the Kodak Theatre to announce that Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Studios Home Entertainment and Warner Bros. will include the anti-smoking announcements produced by the state’s Health and Human Services Agency.

The Entertainment Industry Foundation, a group that has focused for several years on combating the negative effects of “glamorized” smoking in films, worked out the agreement with the studios.

“We believe that it will discourage children from starting to smoke and certainly encourage youth who do smoke to stop,” Lisa Paulsen, president of the foundation, said of the ads, which will appear with the trailers.

In one of the ads, glamorous pictures of a dancer, disc jockey and cowboy are shown as a voice says: “Tobacco companies show you images of what life would be like if you smoke. They tell you tough, hardworking people smoke their cigarettes. That you’ll look cool, hip, rebellious. That smoking makes you independent, beautiful and mysterious.

“But the reality is that you can end up looking like this,” the voice says slowly as the ad shows a seriously ill, emaciated man in a wheelchair.

Such ads have worked when shown on television, according to state health agency director Kim Belshe. But she said she was concerned that the decline in the smoking rate for young people has been leveling off in recent years.

“We have seen research that shows there is some kind of connection between the smoking our youths see in movies and the likelihood they are going to become smokers themselves,” Belshe said.

The American Medical Assn. Alliance recently blasted Universal for what it said was gratuitous inclusion of smoking in “The Incredible Hulk.” Dianne Fenyk, head of the alliance, noted that the character played by Hurt, Gen. Thaddeus E. “Thunderbolt” Ross, has a cigar in almost every one of his scenes in this year’s movie, while the same character does not smoke at all in a 2003 Hulk movie.

The president of the California Medical Assn. said he would prefer that tobacco products be removed from films, but he applauded the plan to include anti-smoking ads on DVDs. “We support anything that discourages people from smoking,” Richard Frankenstein said.

Not everyone likes the idea. Robert Best, California coordinator of the smokers’ rights group Citizens Freedom Alliance Inc., doubts the ads will be more than a nuisance. “It’s going to be skipped over and laughed at rather than doing any good,” Best said.

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patrick.mcgreevy@ latimes.com