Do we really even need the MPAA?

"Clearly, smoking is increasingly an unacceptable behavior in our society," MPAA topper Dan Glickman said in a statement.

Uh huh.

~~Maybe~~ in California.

Apparently, this guy has never been on a movie set. Or in any artistic field. When I was messing around with my art career, illustration or some such nonsense, there were SMOKING BREAKS in every class, every 45 minutes or so because 99% of the people smoked.

But let's skip ahead to the real issue:

LEGISLATING MORALITY.

Jim Steyer, CEO of family advocacy group Common Sense Media, called the announcement "a big step forward for the MPAA to connect the dots between onscreen behavior and the impact on kids' health."

Or maybe, you know, PARENTS actually taking an active role in ... well... PARENTING. Could the ever-escalating numbers of single parent households be responsible? And not the movies. That would seem to be Common Sense to me.

What I really don't understand is... Why take a stand against cigarettes? Why not alcohol?

There's many, many, many more times the amount of deaths DIRECTLY related to alcohol than has ever been even indirectly connected to cigarettes.

What's a PG-13 coming of age, college, comedy without excessive binge drinking? I've yet to see ANY movie portray cigarettes in a light that is a fraction of the endorsement movies are for alcohol.

Or how about food consumption? Should we stop showing people eating? The number one cause of death in the U.S. is HEART DISEASE. And somehow we like to dismiss the fact that America is rapidly becoming the most OBESE nation... by a large margin. Gee, wonder if that extra ton of belly fat puts more strain on my heart, that leads to further complications, such as heart disease. Go figure.

Are we going to start warning against all the evils of the world that can be put into a film? I thought the singular LETTER was supposed to represent the general idea of how acceptable a movie is to a given age group. Not the be all, end all, final decision of every minor offensive vice held within. That decision is SUPPOSED to be made by the parent. But so many people in this day and age love to blame others for their problems. And corporations, in the endless pursuit to avoid any liability, placate even the smallest minority.

Could you imagine the warning label that would play at the start of the film if this trend continues? It would be longer than the end credit crawl for a Peter Jackson film.

There is only one word that can sum it all up:

PUSSIES.