This film contains depictions of legalese

I'm watching Game 3 of the NBA Finals — which didn't start until 9 p.m. EDT and won't end until before everyone on the East Coast goes to sleep — and since I'm watching it live and thus without TiVo protection, I'm forced to watch ads. For the most part, I ignore them. So it wasn't until the seventy-seventh (or so) ad for The Incredible Hulk — not to be confused with the incredible Hulk or The Incredible Hulk — that I noticed something strange. After 30 seconds of Edward Norton's Bruce Banner getting angry and ripping up cars and tanks, the credits card flashes on the screen for a microsecond. The usual list of actors, producers, best boys, gaffers, plus a tiny Motion Picture Association of America warning that the movie is rated PG-13 for "for sequences of intense action violence, some frightening sci-fi images, and brief suggestive content."

OK. Whatever. But what really struck me was the larger, boxed, all-capped warning above it — one I'd never seen before:

THIS FILM CONTAINS DEPICTIONS OF TOBACCO CONSUMPTION

Say what now?

Now I'm not the only one who noticed this. Jared Bridges on TruePravda suggested that "The Hulk must be an incredible smoker." Wally Conger in Out of Step notes the warning, as does Jason Apuzzo on Libertas. And scholars like Jonathan R. Polansky, Kori Titus, and Stanton A. Glantz have opined in a scholarly way about the effects of recent MPAA tobacco warnings on audiences (little, if any). I'm not going to wade into the debate about tobacco warnings and their efficacy or whether smoking should be shown in movies. My problem is with the lawyer who wrote this abomination. (The warning, not the movie. I haven't seen the movie and thus can't comment on its abominability.) Or more probably, committee of lawyers. Or worse, committee of lawyer wannabes.

This is the type of lawyerly (in a bad way) bureaucraspeak that infects law firms, HR departments, corporate-communications offices, and — apparently — film-ratings boards. It is similar to the kind of jargon that police officers, lawyers, and doctors use to sound more impressive or important. (See "Abandoning jargon 'at a high rate of speed.'") It is highfalutin gobbledygook that people use thinking that it strengthens what they're saying when it fact it weakens it. And that makes me angry. (You wouldn't like me when I'm angry.)

The word choices are ridiculous. All films contain "depictions," which are lifelike images of something. To call The Incredible Hulk a "film" is joke. "Films" are generally in black and white with subtitles and no third act; this is a "movie" by any definition. (I prefer movies.) And how many "no tobacco consumption" signs have you ever seen? Do you think that someone would be confused if you used the word "smoking" and wonder whether it showed footage of burning toast? Probably not.

Say what you mean as plainly as you can and then shut up: "This movie shows smoking."

'Nuff said.

Comments

[James]

From imdb.com:

His character, Worm, in Rounders (1998) was originally supposed to smoke but being avid non-smoker, he refused and the part rewritten as a non-smoker.

I absolutely love Norton as an actor and have enjoyed the vast majority of his movies. Unfortunately, this movie is headed down the path of the Liberal Left trying to prove to the world that they really are more right than the Conservative Right. They forget that the appropriate response to "I am holier than thou" is not, "NO, I am holier."

California is probably going to fall into the ocean, while remaining completely smoke-free.