Baby can breathe easier. The latest Bridget Jones episode, Bridget Jones's Baby (R, Comcast, 2016), is smokefree. That's a sharp change from 2004's Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, when Renee Zellweger and seven smoking co-stars delivered 570 million tobacco impressions to domestic moviegoers.
Comcast's Universal Studios has generally improved its tobacco track record over the past dozen years. In 2004, 93 percent of Universal's films featured smoking. In 2015, 38 percent did. Tobacco incidents were down by 75 percent, audience exposure (impressions) fell nearly 60 percent.
That's progress—but not enough to keep kids safe. The major studios learned that on-screen smoking harms adolescents in 2003. These companies still profit from the large libraries of smoking films they've released in the meantime.
Universal streams Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason on Amazon Video, Google Play, iTunes, Netflix, Vudu and YouTube for $2.99.
How to avert a million tobacco deaths in this generation? Update the R-rating to include future movies with smoking, reports the CDC. That will keep smoking out of the movies that kids see most. Why wait one child longer?
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