Smoking Gun
‘JAMES Bond has been smoking for years and he looks as if he hasn’t aged a day.
| ”The name’s Potter, Harry Potter” |
Whether it’s puffing on one of his Moorland Specials or chuffing away on a huge cigar, Bond does so with no hint of a cough and with non-yellowed fingers.
But rather than being celebrated as an advert to all of us that you can smoke and still be fit enough to save the world from a megalomaniac’s destructive clutches, he should be made to stub the evil weed out.
That’s the opinion of the anti-smoking lobby, who, the Telegraph reports, want the British Board of Film Classification to cut film scenes showing Bond smoking.
Professor Gerard Hastings, director of cancer research at the Centre for Tobacco Control, says: ”If the BBFC doesn’t accept its moral responsibility, it might as well pack up and go home.”
But the BBFC does not agree. And Bond’s smoking will not edited out, nor will his movies be awarded a protective XXX certificate to prevent youngsters’ minds being polluted.
Sue Clarke, a spokesperson for the board, tells the Times that smoking is fine so long as it is in context.
Bond smoking a cigar in Cuba is fine. But ”if Harry Potter was offering fags around it would be a serious problem. We would ask them [the film’s makers] to cut it.”
While Harry is prevented from making a rite of teenage passage and puffing on an illicit fag behind the broomstick shed, we read that the BBFC has relaxed its rules on other sins.
No longer are incidents of head-butting and ear-clapping deemed taboo.
The board will also cease its wonderful tradition of counting swearwords; and language rules will be relaxed in non-aggressive contexts.
Playful swearing, like that enacted in Four Weddings and a Funeral, is now viewed as fine and dandy, and it’s also more acceptable now for one man to swear at another.
But the foul-mouthed man must still take care not to swear at children. And that includes the clean-living Harry Potter – although at least now you can give him a hearty smack…’
Posted: 10th, February 2005 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
