I’ve done a few items about airbrushing — about latter-day revisions and deletions. For example, I published a letter about a Norman Rockwell painting: A figure got the cigarette yanked from his mouth. And I commented, “. . . we live in a strange society. On television, day after day, night after night, there is practically full-scale [um, coupling]. But figures in Norman Rockwell paintings are deprived of their cigarettes. Americans are puritanical, but they are puritanical in different ways from before.”

A reader now writes,

Hi Mr. Nordlinger,
Tonight Hubby & I watched State of Play, a not-too-bad movie about politicians, mercenaries, murder, and the righteous newspaperman who uncovers it all. At the very, very end of the credits — I always watch all the credits — there was a tobacco disclaimer, informing us that any smoking shown was for artistic effect and not to be taken as an endorsement of smoking.
I wondered, “Where are the disclaimers informing us that the murders, the political corruption, the adultery, etc. were just for artistic effect and not to be taken as endorsements of such actions?”