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The stars made quite a scene on Oscar’s red carpet this year. Community health partners and Reality Check youth leaders from across Western New York upstaged them with a fashionable statement of their own: let’s get the smoking scenes of the screen.
Here’s a photo gallery of our communities commemorating International Week of Action, an annual event to educate youth and parents about the prevalence of smoking in movies and to push the film industry to rate youth-rated movies that show smoking R:
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), an R rating for movies with tobacco use can potentially reduce the number of teen smokers by 18 percent, preventing up to 1 million premature smoking deaths among youth alive today.
In addition to the movie, theatre goers took selfies and posted them on social media outlets using the hashtag #HelpOscarQuit. They also signed a “Rate Smoking R” banner and petitions that will be sent to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the agency that manages the American film rating system, providing parents with the information needed to determine if a film is appropriate for their children.