We’ve been warned

Watching a movie could soon be very frightening

I’m watching a TV series in which one of the main characters, a hard-bitten Texas oilman, is a chain-smoker, barely stubbing out one cigarette before lighting another. Each time he smokes, or is about to smoke, a warning pops up on the screen: Smoking is injurious to health.

Smoking is indeed extremely injurious to anyone’s health and that’s why, very sensibly, more and more people are giving it up. But just in case, through a memory lapse, or for some other reason, someone continues smoking, or an ex-smoker resumes the pernicious habit, it’s become mandatory to have the warning repeated over and over, to remind people just how frightful smoking is.

Then I noticed that, apart from smoking, people in the show were drinking a lot of colas and other fizzy drinks, and eating ice cream, and cookies, and chocolates, all of which will load you up to the raised eyebrows with sugar.

Though not as bad a villain as smoking, sugar is high up on the list of health no-nos, as even a little of it can spike blood glucose, and it is a major cause of obesity, which, in turn, can lead to diabetes. Shouldn’t scenes showing people eating and drinking sugary stuff also carry a warning? Sugar is injurious to your medical bills.

After smoking and sugar, a third S to invite a warning could be speeding. High-speed car chases in which four-wheeled vehicles screech around corners on two wheels, smash through plate glass to plough through crowded malls, scattering people like confetti, have become mandatory in action movies.

With India having the highest number of road deaths in the world, is it time to put a brake on fast driving, with on-screen car chases being appropriately red-flagged? Speeding can be injurious to your longevity.

Action movies also showcase parkour acrobatics, with stuntmen and women leaping from rooftop to rooftop, and engaging in other death-defying acts. Stunting can be injurious to your life insurance company.

Having received all these frightening and frightful warnings, by the time you reach a movie’s conclusion, you might well feel we too have come to THE END.

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