Hollywood's Nagging Nicotine Addiction

THE FEDS, AS recently reported, are about to put more graphic images on packs of cigarettes to deter smoking ... but what about all those actors lighting up in the movies? The progressive political group Center for American Progress notes on its site Campus Progress that TV shows like "Mad Men" and films like Woody Allen's latest, "Midnight in Paris," are glamorizing the addiction to the extreme, all in the name of "realism." Cigarettes, the site points out, "have always had the extra element of looking cool. Picture Humphrey Bogart as Rick in 'Casablanca' – sitting at the bar, smoke billowing languorously around him. Or Sean Connery’s James Bond, lighting up a cigarette at the baccarat table before he coolly dispatches an enemy with a quip and a turn of the cards. These are powerful images, and they stick with us for a reason ... Realism in film and television is important. But it doesn’t trump responsibility." Of course, the argument is not new, and ignores other cinematic vices like, say, violence and the excessive consumption of alcohol and illicit drugs. Yet somehow, the hapless dudes in "The Hangover" aren't as seductive as the dapper Don Draper inhaling a Marlboro.