AMA Alliance Warns Parents About Smoking in 'The Incredible Hulk,' Other Summer Bl...( AMA Alliance Legacy Foundation Leadin...),Health

AMA Alliance, Legacy Foundation, Leading Public Health Advocates Call for R

Rating for Films with Tobacco Imagery

CHICAGO, June 11 /PRNewswire/ -- The American Medical Association (AMA) Alliance warned parents today of yet another Hollywood film that exposes underage audiences to unnecessary smoking: "The Incredible Hulk." The AMA Alliance, the volunteer arm of the American Medical Association (AMA), includes more than 27,000 grassroots members working in their communities to protect children and promote healthy lifestyles. Over the past two years, they have paid particular attention to smoking in motion pictures, and they are calling for an R rating for any film with irresponsible or gratuitous tobacco images.

Universal Studios' "The Incredible Hulk" (PG-13) opens June 13 and is one of the summer's most anticipated movies. The film is a follow-up to 2003's "Hulk," which was also PG-13 but did not contain tobacco imagery. General Thaddeus 'Thunderbolt' Ross is a character who did not smoke at all during his appearances in the first film, but he is shown puffing on a cigar in nearly every scene in this sequel.

"Shame on 'The Incredible Hulk' for unnecessarily adding smoking to a sequel that would have been just as exciting and believable without it," said Dianne Fenyk, President of the Alliance. "Universal Studios and the other Hollywood studios should be especially embarrassed for using comic book movies, which they market to children and know youth will want to see, to promote tobacco."

Other recent examples of smoking in movies based on comic books or children's television series include: "Iron Man" (PG-13; 2008); "Speed Racer" (PG; 2008); "X-Men: The Last Stand" (PG-13; 2006); "Superman Returns" (PG-13; 2006) and "Spider Man 2" (PG-13; 2004).

The AMA Alliance was also particularly surprised to find tobacco imagery because of the people involved in "The Incredible Hulk." Its leading actor, Edward Norton, h
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