Author(s): Erin Ryan, Keisha L. Hoerrner Title: Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide: Smoking and Drinking in Disney`s Animated Classics Source: Mass Communication and Society. Volume: 7 Number: 3 Page(s): 262-278. Introduction:

• The Walt Disney Company is, of course, a multimillion dollar empire that includes theme parks, a television network, book publishing companies, retail stores, web portals, television production companies, and motion picture companies—in addition to a corporate icon named Mickey known to children worldwide.
• Disney has consistently prided itself on being a company dedicated to children and families.
• The provocative component of Disney has also prompted greater scrutiny of Disney films by researchers, who are concerned the content geared toward children is anything but “wholesome”. Scholars criticized Disney films regarding such social issues as violence, ethnicity, gender stereotypes, and even death. A lawsuit was actually filed in Arkansas over “subliminal” sexual content in three Disney films.
• Disney films are again the focus of analysis in this study of two specific public health problems: tobacco and alcohol use.
• The gross income of a Disney movie does not include the revenue collected from video sales and video rentals, two avenues that not only add dollars to Disney’s coffers, but also extend the reach of the films into children’s lives. In fact, Giroux went so far as to exert, “these films inspire at least as much cultural authority and legitimacy for teaching specific roles, values and ideals than more traditional sites of learning such as public schools, religious institutions and the family”

Review of the Literature

• Since before the era of Prohibition, alcohol has been a mainstay in American cinema, while the pairing of actors and tobacco continues to be a staple of character development, with some contemporary Hollywood’s brightest stars lighting up the silver screen.
• Many studies concerning media effects focus on adolescent usage of media. Klein et al. (1993) reported media portrayals of risky or unhealthy behaviours may promote or reinforce the appropriateness of such behaviors through influences on individual values.

Media and Tobacco Use

• Sargent et al.’s (2001) cross-sectional study of the effect of seeing tobacco use in films on trying smoking among adolescents found a strong, direct, independent association between higher exposure to tobacco use in films and smoking in adolescents.

Media and Alcohol Use

• A study by Dale (1988) reported in films released between 1929 and 1931, 66% showed drinking, with 75% of those films treating alcohol consumption as humorous. Interestingly, more heroes than villance were shown drinking.
• The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (2001) reported people who begin drinking before age 15 are four times more likely to develop alcoholism than those who begin at age 21.
• In Kulick and Rosenberg’s (2001) study, people who vewed positive portrayals of drinking, such as laughing, singing, dancing, and companionship, were more positive about drinking alcohol.
• In Bahk’s (1997) study of the impact of presence versus absence of negative consequences in dramatic portrayals of drining, he found the absence of negative consequences in dramatic alcohol portrayals may be seen as promoting more favourable attitudes regarding consumption. His findings indicate it could make a real difference whether people will view drinking as negative if the negative consequences of alcohol drinking are presented.

Alcohol and Tobacco in Film

• Studies of the incidence of both alcohol and tobacco usage in film are relatively recent.
• In Everett, Schnuth, and Tribble’s (1998) study of tobacco and alcohol use in top-grossing American films from 1985 to 1995, they found at least one pro-tobacco event in 98% of the films studied, and 62% of the films had no antitobacco events. Similary, they found that 96% of the films contained at least one pro-alcohol event and 63% had no anti-alcohol events. Everett et al. (1998) found it disturbing that pro-tobacco and pro-alcohol events were common in PG and PG-13 rated films. They explained such frequency of substance use in film without any antiuse messages promotes the belief that the use of both tobacco and alcohol is common, acceptable, bears little risk, and is expected and embraced.

Method

• Before conducting the content analysis of Disney films targeted to children, operational definitions were composed, a coding sheet was developed, coders were trained, and intercoder reliability was tested.

Results

• There were 381 incidents of both alcohol and tobacco exposure throughout the films; 106 incidents of tobacco exposure and 275 incidents of alcohol exposure within the 24 films. These incidents ranged from a brief glimpse of a keg of beer in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to Cruella De Vil chain-smoking cigarettes throughout 101 Dalmatians. Of the 24 films analyzed, only three (12.5%) contained no alcohol or tobacco: The Jungle Book (released in 1967), The Fox and the Hound (1981), and Mulan (1998). A total of 18 films (75%) contained at least one tobacco exposure and 18 (75%) contained at least one alcohol exposure.

Alcohol and Tobacco Products

• The most frequently pictured type of tobacco product was the pipe, which was shown 52 times (49%), followed by the cigar (43%), and the cigarette (8%). The most frequently pictured type of alcohol was beer (49%) followed by wine (29%), champagne (17%), and spirits (3%)
• It is interesting to note that Pinocchio showed the most cigar usage (30% of all cigar use), followed by Oliver and Company (24% of all cigar use)
• Interestingly, three products were shown fairly regularly throughout all 24 films: cigars, pipes, and wine.

Discussion

• A review of this study’s results shows the use of tobacco decreased in Disney films over time, while the use of alcohol increased. There is no way to determine the rationale for these trends, but it is interesting to note tobacco use decreased following the 1964 Surgeon General’s report showing a casual link between smoking and lung cancer, along with other detrimental health effects (Parascandola, 1997). This same decade saw those characters drinking beer and wine by the gallons.
• Today’s Disney seems to be sending a direct message to young viewers that smoking is not an action to engage in but drinking is a viable option.
• The only hopeful sign of Disney’s extensive portrayal of tobacco and alcohol use is that these substances are used overwhelmingly by supporting characters rather than the heroes and heroines the children are most likely to model.
• Given these characters are almost never rejected for using tobacco or alcohol products, children are repeatedly getting the message that use of these substances is acceptable.