Example research essay topic: Bad Influence Medical Specialists - 1,092 words

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Smoking in the Movies In recent years the issue of smoking in modern American movies used to become a point of interest of many different people, from usual parents and teachers to sociologists and medical specialists. Along with growing rates of violence, sexual abuse, and drug usage in the majority of Hollywood movies, it appears to bring considerable danger for normal development of little kids and adolescents, who may happen to watch R-rated movies any day at TV or in the cinema. Smoking used to be one of the most favorite and practicable instruments of Hollywood movie directors to demonstrate the mood or psychological condition of a character. The way a character smokes could tell spectators, whether the character is stressed out, or depressed, or bored, or exhausted. Overwhelming majority of movie personages, both male and female, smoke cigarettes when they are waiting: such a trick intrigues spectators and gives a pause before some new wave of action. Besides, it is important, what exactly characters smoke.

A wealthy banker or oligarch can pull out expensive luxury cigars, showing off his financial opportunities. Cowboys and macho's smoke Marlboro, of course; it is an entire culture, which goes with its roots deep into the 60 th and the 70 th. Dirty homeless street inhabitants smoke whatever they can find on the streets. Deep thinkers and intellectuals, like Sherlock Holmes, are always equipped with a pipe to smoke it with serious pomposity. It is possible to name some examples of excessive and bothering smoking in Hollywood movies. For example, there are two newly released movies, where smoking became an important detail of the development of action.

First is widely advertised horror movie of Francis Lawrence Constantine, in which Keanu Reeves, an idol of all modern teenagers, appears almost in every second scene with cigarette in his mouth. According to the plot, his personage was supposed to die from lung cancer in order to be reborn again and understand meaning of his life. Another movie is called The Jacket, in which a character played by Kelly Lynch died in an accident. He fell asleep with a cigarette in his hand, which caused fire, so the scene resulted in tragic death of this character. Obviously, the most sensitive target of bad influence of smoking in movies is little children and teenagers, whose life views and personal principles are only being developed. Specialists tried to estimate and analyze such influence of smoking in movies on kids and teenagers as an encouraging factor to try smoking.

Surprisingly, the results of different studies and surveys vary. One longitudinal study took place in 2003 in Dartmouth Medical School. More than 2, 500 children from 10 to 14 were followed for 13 - 26 months after watching some movies with numerous scenes of smoking. The conclusion was: 52 % of the kids tried to smoke after watching these movies, so the effect was estimated to be much bigger than the one from different tobacco ads. According to the data of this survey, in our country daily 1070 kids start smoking because of the movies, and 330 of them will die because of smoking caused diseases (Landmark Study). The other study is much more optimistic, it was carried out by a group of medical specialists headed by Dr.

Omidvari. The major founding of this study was: characters in modern Hollywood movies do not smoke more, than usual people of the USA. The rate was estimated as 23. 3 % vs 24. 8 %, respectively. The researchers found total similarity of the circumstances of smoking in the movies to the ones in real life: (1) positive heroes smoke less than negative, (2) men smoke more than women, (3) poorer people smoke more than richer people (Omidvari et al. ).

And the majority of studies indicate current increase of the amount of smoking in movies, along with growing importance of smoking characters in movie plots. This can be harmful for children and teenagers, who can try to copy their idols by borrowing their habits and manners, including smoking. There are some most common ways of preventing such bad influence on children. Watching movies under supervision of parents, requirement of anti-tobacco advertisements, or necessity of hiding particular cigarette brands of movie characters are among them. Personally I would not say that smoking cigarettes in the movies can bring to some dangerous results and influence on kids that much. To my mind, smoking parents, siblings or close friends of the family are much more dangerous for forming life principles of little kids and teenagers.

Besides, as one of the studies shows, smoking in movies and in real life is almost same, so if parents want to spare a child from its bad influence, they would rather make him watch cartoons or special movies for children. But, of course, if the point is smoking some narcotic substances, which is actually frequently accompanied in the movies with numerous scenes of violence, cruelty, murder, or horror, then such movies must definitely be rated as the ones, which can be watched by children only under parents control. It is obligation of parents to prepare a child for meeting dangerous pleasures of real life, thats why it would be better for adults to do explanations for their children during the scenes of smoking and violence in movies. Nevertheless, unfortunately, sooner or later the children will see all those negative things in their real life, so sooner or later they will have to decide themselves, whether to smoke or not, whether to drink or not, weather to fight or not. And another question is: should movie directors try to lower the amount of smoking, drinking alcohol or gun shooting in their movies? When thinking about little children and teenagers, we would strictly say Yes.

But, on the other hand, it is obvious that more sterilized refined cinema art will hardly be attractive and thrilling for millions of its lovers all around the world, as it will not be supported by connections with real life and will not show real characters in the movies. Bibliography: "Landmark Study. " Smoke Free Movies. 10 Sept. 2005 < web >. Omidvari, Karan, Klaus Less nau, Jeannie Kim, Donald Merchant, Ann Weinacker, and Carol Mason. "Smoking in Contemporary American Cinema. " Med Scape. 28 Aug. 2005. 10 Sept. 2005 < web >. Sullum, Jacob. "Flick Ashes. Do Movies Cause Smocking?" Reason Online.

Electronic Version of Reason Magazine. 19 Aug. 2005. 10 Sept. 2005 < web >. "The Solution. " Smoke Free Movies. 10 Sept. 2005 < web >.

Research essay sample on Bad Influence Medical Specialists