Personally for me, I can find nothing more distracting from a woman’s sexual presence than a cigarette. Long known as a statement of personal freedom, self inflicted carefree health risk, and a rebel without a cause. Its edgy, dangerous. It says “No one better mess with me”. But to me all it says is “I smell bad and I think its attractive”
Today cigarettes are more common onscreen than at any other time since midcentury: 75% of all Hollywood films–including 36% of those rated G or PG–show tobacco use, according to a 2006 survey by the University of California, San Francisco.
Audiences, especially kids, are taking notice. Two recent studies, published in Lancet and Pediatrics, have found that among children as young as 10, those exposed to the most screen smoking are up to 2.7 times as likely as others to pick up the habit. Worse, it’s the ones from nonsmoking homes who are hit the hardest, perhaps because they are spared the dirty ashtrays and musty drapes that make real-world smoking a lot less appealing than the sanitized cinematic version.
In my perfect world, we would not have cigarettes, but then people would likely find some other means of incredibly slow suicide to replace it. I am not going to go on a 4 paragraph rant about why an attractive woman would want to spend so much time and effort to look pretty just so she can light up and stink. But to me it just isn’t appealing to me in any way, and though people have tried the habit cannot be justified.
Besides that, brilliant movies like Thank You for Smoking takes a look at the contradiction of a big tobacco publicist manipulating the public to sell his distasteful product while still attempting to be a role model for his son.
With all the restrictions on smoking in public places and restaurants and bars, there has never been a time where tobacco companies have to drive harder to make their sales. And where better to do so than a place you dont know you are being sold. In a movie. To kids.
Scarlett Johansson frequently lights up on screen. She is one of the sexiest figures in movies today. Smoking. What 13 year old girl thriving to crank up her sex appeal thanks to Britney Spears last music video isnt going to want to be just like Scarlett? Or any other physically attractive star. Boys are no more immune. All the cool tough guy badasses since James Dean seem to have a pack of cigarettes in their pocket too.
I was surprised to hear the statistics. I thought we were on a decline of the glamourization of smoking.
I guess I was wrong.
