Kids love to make snowmen when Minnesota gets hit with lots of white fluffy snow. This was the case a few weeks ago when we had our first big snowstorm. A friend of mine sent me this picture of the snowman her neighbor’s children made. These very young designers spent a few hours on this snowman making sure that all the details were in place. Look closely, did you notice the pipe in this showman’s mouth?
Frosty the snowman was made into an animated television shown in 1969. In 1969 the smoking rates in this country were 40%. Great changes have taken place over the past 50 years, but the children in this country are still being exposed to smoking messages in various ways – and as you can see from the picture children as young as 4 and 5 feel that it is important to depict cartoon characters as they were introduced 50 years ago!
Even today with smoking rates down to 14% in this country, the messages for smoking are sometimes hidden but they are still there, and these message give the idea that smoking is normal because frosty smokes. Of the 2017 Oscar-nominated feature films that were rated PG-13 (excluding animation and documentary categories), 70 percent depicted tobacco use.
What do you think about this?
For more information on smoking in the movies, visit Smokefree Movies at the University of California, San Francisco.
Therese Shumaker, MA
