Last week, US District Judge Richard Seeborg ruled against the plaintiffs in the national class action lawsuit that claimed that the MPAA ratings were a form of commercial speech that did not warrant First Amendment protections.
The MPAA, studios and theater owners argued successfully that the movie ratings were “opinions” and not subject to restrictions on commercial speech that were designed to protect the public interest.
The scientific evidence that smoking in movies causes kids to smoke was not at issue. The court simply said that, despite the science showing that onscreen smoking causes kids to smoke, the MPAA was free to award youth ratings to movies with smoking.