Hollywood Hypocrisy

AP: Study: Hollywood Doesn't Show Consequences---

LONDON - Hollywood might be bad for your health, according to a new study, which concludes that blockbuster movies paint a consequence-free view of sex and drugs.

Dr. Hasantha Gunasekera, the study's lead author from the School of Public Health at the University of Sydney, said the findings are troubling, "given the HIV and illicit drug pandemics in developing and industrialized countries."

The Australian researchers studied a September 2003 list of the 200 biggest box-offices successes of all time as ranked by the Internet Movie Database. They excluded animated features, films with G and PG ratings, and movies released or set before the start of the AIDS pandemic in 1983.

Of the 87 remaining movies in the study published Monday in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 28 contained sex scenes — a total of 53 scenes in all.
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Eight percent of the films contained depictions of marijuana use, and 7 percent other non-injected drugs, the researchers said.

Just over half the marijuana scenes — 52 percent — showed use of the drug in a positive way. In the other 48 percent of cases it was depicted as neutral.

Characters smoked tobacco in 68 percent of the films and got drunk in 32 percent.

Only a quarter of the movies were entirely free of behavior such as unprotected sex, drug use, smoking and drinking, the researchers said.

The authors concluded: "The motion picture industry should be encouraged to depict safer sex practices and the real consequences of unprotected sex and illicit drug use."

Film mavens disagreed.

Adam Smith, a writer with the British film magazine Empire, said it isn't Hollywood's job "to be a social or moral guardian. It's fiction."

"I don't think you can pinpoint Hollywood as responsible for sexual immorality in the post-AIDS era," said Paul Grainge of the Institute of Film and Television Studies at the University of Nottingham. "Hollywood responds to social mores as well as creates them."

Isn't it funny that Hollywood promotes these "values," but hates it when we Christians try to promote ours.

Further, if Hollywood is not supposed to be a "social or moral guardian," then why do all the Hollywood "celebs" think they are? They all think everyone wants to hear their views on issues from energy consumption to the War to abortion to anything and everything else.

They can't have it both ways!