Lighting up on the silver screen: a history of smoking in cinema
Cinema can influence a lot of people in a number of different ways, and it’s not a coincidence that smoking has become less and less prevalent on-screen as the clampdowns on lighting up continue to try and eliminate it from society as much as possible.
Of course, with medical research and science continuing to evolve, the days where companies would brazenly claim smoking wasn’t bad for the health in the slightest are a thing of the past, but impressionable youths can still be swayed if the biggest stars of the day are making it look cool.
For decades, tobacco peddlers worked closely with both studios and actors to ensure their products took pride of place in movies where characters were rarely seen without a cig in hand, with Joan Crawford, in particular, doing a stellar job of making Lucky Strike the brand of choice for many when she was paid handsomely to endorse them in public and on-screen.
Once cigarette advertising was banned from television and radio in 1970, it was only a matter of time before cinema started following suit. While there are countless modern-day movies and TV shows to feature smoky rooms and second-smoke smoke being shared among the ensemble, more often than not they tend to be independent pieces and/or period pieces.
There was even a failed attempt in 2016 to urge the MPAA that any film featuring tobacco use in a capacity anything other than a very limited one should necessitate an automatic R-rating, but it didn’t come to pass. Still, production companies and studios have taken it upon themselves to eliminate it as much as possible, reflecting the society-wide shift that’s seen it banned all over the world in various bars, restaurants, and public places.
The MPAA did encourage those seeking to avoid harsher ratings to avoid showing smoking in movies aimed towards younger audiences, though, while in 2019, Netflix pledged to abolish any instances of characters smoking in any content carrying a rating below TV-14. It’s a far cry from the ‘Golden Age’ where ciggies were everywhere, and the percentage of pictures to show on-screen smoking has plummeted over the years.
According to Dish, almost 30% of all American movies in the 1960s and 1970s showed smoking in one form or another. Coinciding with the aforementioned advertising ban at the turn of the latter decade, it instigated a gradual decline that didn’t come close to reaching 10% by the dawn of the 2020s.
The days of Clint Eastwood, John Wayne and Humphrey Bogart exuding effortless cool with a cigarette handing from their lips are a thing of the past, not to mention Philip Morris paying $350,000 for the privilege of having its Lark brand displayed prominently in James Bond movie Licence to Kill. It’s a different world for filmmakers and cinemagoers alike, with on-screen puffing the exception instead of the rule.
That’s not to say everyone who has ever watched an iconic character or legendary star lighting up is going to find themselves overcome with the urge to take up the habit, but it happens. It’s been happening for almost as long as the moving image has been around, even if it took a while for cigarettes, cigars, joints, pipes, and whatever else can be used as a tobacco-friendly implement to be treated as something to be frowned upon under the bright lights of Hollywood, rather than actively encouraged.
