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PhotoTO: Fuck Censorship

By Miles Storey

2007_09_09censorsmoking3.jpg
Reacting to an Ontario Tobacco-Free Network youth rally at Queen and John yesterday asking for all films that show actors smoking be rated 18a, Alex Woodside forms an impressively blunt impromptu counter-protest. View more images after the fold.


2007_09_09censorsmoking1.jpg
2007_09_09censorsmoking2.jpg
All Photos by Miles Storey.

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  • guest

    What a stupid protest. You wouldn’t automatically rate a movie containing shooting in it 18a because it somehow “promotes gun violence”. This is no different from those Christian parents going “OMG Video games cause violence!!” What are they going to do, edit smoking out of movies to avoid the 18a ratings?

  • guest

    The guy in the first photo has had one too many of his comments deleted on Torontoist ;)

  • guest

    The “cut this scene” people seem to think the clapper board is used the cutting — its not.
    (Its used for syncing picture and sound. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clapper_board)

  • Chris Tindal

    Would he support the censorship of grammatical errors on protest signs?
    No, probably not.

  • Kevin Bracken

    I can’t believe this is even on the table
    Kids supporting stronger movie ratings? What is happening to their brains?!

  • Patrick Metzger

    If they started re-cutting old films, there wouldn’t be anything left of Casablanca except the plane taking off.

  • Jonathan Goldsbie

    I picked up one of the OTN’s postcards as I exited the Scotiamount the other day. It’s even more unsettling and poorly-considered than I had expected. I’m going to transcribe it below:
    Front:

    Smoking in movies is no way to act! CUT THIS SCENE!
    Smoking has no place in children and youth films.     Research in the U.S. and Europe has concluded that youth who watch movies with smoking are more likely to start smoking.

    Back:

    Why cut this scene?
    • A team of researchers at Dartmouth Medical School found that youth who viewed many images of smoking in films were three times more likely to start smoking.
    • Images of smoking in youth-rated movies are a type of advertising for an extremely dangerous product, tobacco.
    • Tobacco use kills 16 000 Ontarians every year.
    For more information about Smoking in Movies, visit the Ontario Tobacco-free Network at http://www.theotn.org.
    What should be done?
    • Ontario youth and volunteers are calling on the Ontario Film Review Board (OFRB) to rate movies with smoking 18A (unless it is historically significant to have a character smoking, e.g. Winston Churchill).
    These advocates would also like to see:
    • Certification in the closing credits of a film stating that nothing of value was received or exchanged for the display or use of tobacco products.
    • Strong smoke-free ads run just prior to movies with smoking.
    • No tobacco brand identification.
    Children and Youth-rated films with smoking:
    • Superbad 14A
    • Material Girls PG
    • Pirates of the Caribbean 2 – Dead Man’s Chest PG

  • rek

    And violence once again gets a free pass.

  • guest

    They called “Superbad” a children’s film??!!

  • Acadie

    I am sure my two teenage kids want more censorship, sure they do. Who brainwashed these kids to want more, must be some sort of censorship cult which luckily has not indoctrinated my kids yet. They like me agree with the dude on top lol …

  • guest

    i know this is a pretty worn out argument, but at least it’s dumbed down enough to get through to these cretins: if you don’t like it, don’t watch it.
    next time you see a cigarette in a movie, get up and walk out, you naïve, impressionable youths, lest the lung cancer leech through the cinema screen and prematurely snuff out your bright, hopeful lives.
    see also: frank zappa on crossfire, 1986
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ISil7IHzxc

  • Miles Storey

    I should add that a couple of the organisers went over and got a policeman, who was happy watching traffic go by as he guarded the TIFF Schmooze set on John, to come over and ask Alex to change his sign. I wish I had been able to get a shot of the kids, with their matching t-shirts and braces, and Alex with his sign, it was a great juxtaposition.

  • Marc Lostracco

    Since when does the TPS police language?

  • guest

    Hey I’m Alex from the picture. 2 things of note. 1: Yes, I made a grammatical mistake, however I had just walked out of a 9am screening of Control when I saw their protest. One must forgive me after 4 hours of sleep. 2: These kids told me themselves that they were being paid! Not only paid, but paid by THE GOVERNMENT!!!!!Oh and yes the cop did tell me to change the sign, however I think the protest organizer who went over to him (after I had been there for an hour)wanted him to make me leave, or hoped I would put up a fuss and get dragged away. She also came up to me when I first arrived and asked me “why are you putting these kids down?” which boggled my mind as I had not considered their thoughtless protest an exercise in self-esteem.

  • Miles Storey

    Hey Alex, I really don’t think anyone cares about the grammatical error, in fact I think it adds to the feeling that this an emotional reaction and a sign put together in haste, a very genuine reaction to a ridiculous protest.
    If it’s true that these kids were paid… that’s just unthinkably disingenuous. This proposed smoking censorship is the very definition of ‘the thin end of the wedge’.

  • http://undefined joeybear

    What an awful embarrassment to our education system. I’m not talking about the protest, that’s a great idea. I’m talking about the adult male who can’t spell.

  • http://undefined joeybear

    Maybe these kids were brainwashed by the same people who failed to teach the guy in the photo how to spell.