May 21, 2018 | Smokefree Movies launched a first-ever Change.org petition to win the R-rating for movies with smoking from the trade groups that make the rating rules: the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO).
Add your name to the petition and spread the word at https://chn.ge/2GAe1xJ.
The Change.org petition caps a year-long R-rating countdown aimed at the major film studios and theater chains. Several Smokefree Movie partners have requested a petition "action" because a petition is easy to promote and quick to complete for parents and young people just starting to engage the issue.
Smokefree Movies usually encourages partners to focus on the media companies that drive MPAA and NATO. And we still do. This strategy has won the largest reductions in movie smoking ever recorded.
But the film ratings are precious to the film industry, for business and political reasons. The fact that their own ratings, trusted by parents, fail to protect millions of American kids from addiction and death should be Hollywood's hottest controversy.
Please promote this Change.org petition to your members and constituencies through your social media, newsletters and other channels. Feel free to re-brand your promotions.
We'll keep you posted on the signers the petition rings up in the next few months. And we'll brainstorm more ways to show MPAA's Charles Rivkin and NATO's John Fithian that "One little letter 'R' will save a million lives."
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Promote the petition with tweets like these:
• Big Tobacco paid millions to keep smoking in movies. Time for the audience to talk back! Sign the new #RateSmokingR petition at http://bit.ly/R-petition
• Your best and only chance today to save a million lives? Sign the new #RateSmokingR petition at http://bit.ly/R-petition
• No parent wants her kids to smoke. But Hollywood sends a different, deadly message. Sign the new #RateSmokingR petition at http://bit.ly/R-petition
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• Go directly to the new Change.org petition
• Change.org's own short URL: http://bit.ly/R-petition
