June 3, 2007
Thank You for Smoking II Posted by John Steele Gordon at 03:30 PM EST I doubt that smoking in movies induces a single teenager to smoke these days. That might have been true in the mid-twentieth century, when Humphrey Bogart (dead of lung cancer at 58) was a leading movie star, Edward R. Murrow (dead of lung cancer at 57) did his television interviews wreathed in smoke, Franklin Roosevelt (dead of a stroke at 63) was the last President to smoke in public—even using an iconic cigarette holder—and every party and restaurant was blue with the smoke of cigarettes. In those days, smoking cigarettes was a quintessentially adult thing and thus something that teenagers wanted to do. I can remember quite consciously, at age about 16, imitating the way my father (dead of a stroke at 58) held his cigarette. Today I suspect that about the only thing that induces teenagers to smoke is peer pressure, and that, I bet, is declining fast. As a totally unscientific bit of evidence, the local high school students I see smoking are invariably the ones with rings in their noses and their hair dyed puce. One suspects a certain insufficiency of parental authority, not coolness. Instead, I imagine the real motive behind the MPAA’s action is public relations, trying to make the movie industry look socially responsible (now, now, no sniggering please). There is also, I suppose, a touch of one of this country’s less attractive cultural traits, the urge to control other people’s behavior, strictly for their own good, of course. Prohibition is exhibit A, but New York’s Mayor Bloomberg succeeded in banning smoking, even in private clubs, and would dearly love to control the fat content of meals in restaurants. The drinking age, once a state responsibility, was made national, using the states’ dependence on federal highway funds as the lever (no age-21-drinking law, no funds). This made Congress look socially responsible (hey, I said no sniggering!), but it also makes the United States the only country in the world, at least where alcohol is legal, that does not set the drinking age at the age of majority. Instead adults are supposed to wait three years after they can vote, sign a contract, join the army, etc., before they can have a beer. Guess what. They don’t.
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