Schuyler & Chemung Youth Rewarded For Work

Today Reality Check is one step closer to their effort to get smoking out of youth rated films as the Motion Picture Association of America announced that it will consider smoking as part of its rating system. While Reality Check teens are pleased with the announcement, they question whether this new rating system may led to unclear and ambiguous guidelines to rate future films. In 2002, Chemung and Schuyler County Reality Check programs launched campaigns to get smoking out of youth rated films. Since its inception, Reality Check has been a leader across the country and across the world in this fight to stop Hollywood from doing big tobacco’s dirty work. Studies have shown that over 50% of youth smoking initiation can be attributed to exposure to smoking in films. Today, the Motion Picture Association of America has taken the first step, but this exciting progress is just that… progress. There is still room to improve on the MPAA policies even further to protect youth from future tobacco impressions and to reduce youth smoking rates. Reality Check, along with several other parent, youth, and community groups across the country, are encouraging the MPAA to use an R rating with any new movie with smoking in it. Tobacco use in films only normalizes and glamorizes the use of a product that when used as directed kills over 25,000 New Yorkers a year.Reality Check is a youth action movement aimed at exposing the marketing practices of the tobacco industry. Reality Check is not against smokers, but against the Tobacco Industry deliberately marketing its product toward youth. Reality Check in Chemung and Schuyler Counties is a program funded by the NYS Tobacco Control Program and administered locally by Cornell Cooperative Extension of Schuyler County.