# Smoking in movies **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 18, 2014, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-in-movies/698864 "2014-09-18T19:57:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2014, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-in-movies/698864/21 "2014-09-19T17:27:37Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > “Craven”? You mean he’s scared of the pro-smoking lobby who might torpedo his career if he doesn’t include a scene in a movie where a character smokes? And he wishes he didn’t have to include it, but he buckled under the pressure, like a bitch? No, he just cashed their check. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2014, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-in-movies/698864/22 "2014-09-19T17:43:40Z")
A movie set in certain eras that did not show people smoking would lack an air of reality. Unlike urinating or taking a crap, smoking was an activity people did in public: its complete absence would be jarring. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2014, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-in-movies/698864/23 "2014-09-19T18:02:47Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > On a sort of related subject, some years back, I was both amused and annoyed when the Franklin Roosevelt statue at the newly built FDR Memorial showed the President in a wheelchair (he NEVER appeared in a wheelchair in public) but without a cigarette in a cigarette holder! > > COME ON, folks, that cigarette holder was FDR’s trademark! Taking it away was dishonest. My fear for the future, when everything is in The Cloud, that THEY will digitally erase all the smoking in old movies, like Winston (heh heh, Winston) Smith’s job in _1984_. There won’t be any unaltered copies, except those that us old timers will have in our personal DVD collections. And without those old hard copies, no one will be able to prove it was ever there. And they’ll justify it as being for our own good. And my biggest fear? That no one will care! ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2014, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-in-movies/698864/24 "2014-09-19T18:16:57Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > No, he just cashed their check. Cite? ---
**Author:** ![xizor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xizor/32/102_2.png) [@xizor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xizor)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2014, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-in-movies/698864/25 "2014-09-19T18:38:35Z")
> [@erysichthon](#): > > The reason there’s so much smoking in movies is because most actors, directors, and screenwriters are smokers themselves. There is actually a PSA out now that is a montage of a bunch of celebrities photographed smoking with the mocking tag line “Thanks for the free marketing - signed Big Tobacco” ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2014, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-in-movies/698864/26 "2014-09-19T21:00:01Z")
Well, [that scene in _The Day the Earth Stood Still_](http://www.metacafe.com/watch/hl-6128915/the_day_the_earth_stood_still_witchdoctor/) wouldn’t be nearly as hilarious without the smoking. Though I’m not sure that that was quite exactly the intention there… ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2014, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-in-movies/698864/27 "2014-09-19T21:26:50Z")
I was watching part of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” the other day. I was impressed that Liz Taylor not only suppressed her own attractiveness, but didn’t even try and make her smoking sexy or glamorous. (See the scene where she’s having a conversation with Segal while a cig just hangs from her mouth) ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2014, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-in-movies/698864/28 "2014-09-20T09:58:54Z")
> [@gaffa](#): > > \ but having Sigourney Weaver’s character smoke in _Avatar_ was just utterly craven. That would be [Craven A](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craven_A)? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2014, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-in-movies/698864/29 "2014-09-20T11:23:26Z")
> [@erysichthon](#): > > One of Arthur C. Clarke’s late novels (I forget which one) described 20th-century films being digitally altered to remove smoking, because people in the future found it so repulsive. At the time he wrote that, I didn’t think it was likely, but now I’m not so sure. Not movies, but something similar happened to French comic book character Lucky Luke (“the gunman who’s faster than his own shadow”). In the more recent books he chews on a blade of grass because the authors were told they had to remove the cigarettes and “his mouth just doesn’t look right without something in it” (their paraphrased from memory words). The character had been designed at a time when the majority of the adult population smoked and lives in a time and place in which smoking or chewing tobacco was normal. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2014, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-in-movies/698864/30 "2014-09-20T17:35:19Z")
I cannot imagine Humphrey Bogart _not_ smoking! ---
**Author:** ![pullin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c57346/32.png) [@pullin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pullin)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2014, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-in-movies/698864/31 "2014-09-21T14:00:45Z")
Somehow, I don’t think X-Files would’ve worked as well with the “Gum-chewing Man”. ---
**Author:** ![f.coli](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eada6e/32.png) [@f.coli](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/f.coli)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2014, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-in-movies/698864/32 "2014-09-21T14:24:42Z")
I find it interesting that Clint would say that. The spaghetti westerns that made him a star required that he constantly smoke those little cigars. Eli Wallach, his co-star in TGTBTU said that they made Clint sick. I guess Clint felt that they were necessary for his character. ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2014, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-in-movies/698864/33 "2014-09-21T20:03:14Z")
> [@pullin](#): > > Somehow, I don’t think X-Files would’ve worked as well with the “Gum-chewing Man”. The inevitable reboot will feature “Vaping Indoors Even Though It’s Technically Illegal Man.” ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2014, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-in-movies/698864/34 "2014-09-21T20:45:33Z")
Good Night and Good Luck really had to show Edward Murrow as the chain smoker he was. If it hadn’t, I think a lot would have been lost. He died of lung cancer at age 57. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2014, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-in-movies/698864/35 "2014-09-21T22:26:47Z")
> [@f.coli](#): > > I find it interesting that Clint would say that. The spaghetti westerns that made him a star required that he constantly smoke those little cigars. Eli Wallach, his co-star in TGTBTU said that they made Clint sick. I guess Clint felt that they were necessary for his character. I remember reading his interview in _ **Playboy** _ back in the '70s or '80s, where he told about how he gradually acquired all his trademark characteristics—the cigarillos, the poncho, the whole schmeer. IIRC, the process was pretty much serendipitous, with him just happening upon things that seemed to work. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2014, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-in-movies/698864/36 "2014-09-22T11:14:11Z")
Having Walter White’s wife and Jesse Pinkman smoke on “Breaking Bad” may not have been strictly essential, but it would seem kind of odd to show rampant drug abuse and then be too squeamish to show smoking. ---
**Author:** ![Vashbul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Vashbul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vashbul)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2014, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-in-movies/698864/37 "2014-09-22T19:56:03Z")
Supposedly they smoke herbal cigarettes on Mad Men. But if digital alteration of movies worries you, it may already be here. Not to remove smoking from old films, but to add smoke to unlit, prop cigarettes, in situations where a character’s supposed to be smoking but the actor can’t or won’t, or because local ordinances ban smoking in the workplace. Even if it’s necessary for the plot. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2014, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-in-movies/698864/38 "2014-09-22T21:25:35Z")
> [@hogarth](#): > > Having Walter White’s wife and Jesse Pinkman smoke on “Breaking Bad” may not have been strictly essential, but it would seem kind of odd to show rampant drug abuse and then be too squeamish to show smoking. And since Walter has lung cancer, no one can accuse the show of ignoring the negative results of smoking, or of “glamorizing” it. ---
**Author:** ![johnspartan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a183cd/32.png) [@johnspartan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnspartan)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2014, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-in-movies/698864/39 "2014-09-22T21:30:54Z")
Rick Blaine in Casablanca is not chewing bubble gum. He’s not spitting sunflower seeds. He’s not grabbing handfuls of granola with craisins. He’s freaking smoking. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2014, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-in-movies/698864/40 "2014-09-22T21:56:21Z")
> [@Vashbul](#): > > But if digital alteration of movies worries you, it may already be here. Not to remove smoking from old films, but to add smoke to unlit, prop cigarettes, in situations where a character’s supposed to be smoking but the actor can’t or won’t, or because local ordinances ban smoking in the workplace. They actually did this with one of Amy’s experimental monkeys on _ **Big Bang Theory** _. It was _really, really_ obvious! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-in-movies/698864.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-in-movies/698864.md?page=3)