Student Project 2008
Cigarette Advertising on TV (1948-71)
At midnight on January 1, 1971, cigarette advertising on television was banned forever, and TV lost some $230M in revenue (Brandt 307). My current work examines approximately 300 cigarette commercials aired between 1948 and 1971. Following my interest in women’s issues (see my book, What Women Watched: Daytime Television in the 1950s), the research began by examining how cigarettes were advertised to women. While more than half of American men already smoked in 1949, only 21% of women were smokers. Tobacco companies were quick to recognize this potential new female market and rushed to exploit TV’s innovative mode of visual advertising to persuade women to smoke.
Television and Tobacco Revenues
From the dawn of American television, cigarette advertising was a crucial economic lynchpin. In 1948, three of TV’s biggest advertisers were tobacco companies, each selling a single brand of cigarettes: Camel, Lucky Strike, and Chesterfield. By the fall of 1963, cigarette makers sponsored 55 network TV programs, totaling 62.5 hours of air time per week (Pollay 131-2). By 1965, the number of women smokers had reached a record high of 35%, hovering around 30% until 1971. Yet I couldn’t ignore the astonishing statistics about male smokers: by 1959, the percentage of men who smoke reached an all-time high of 60% (Brandt 309).
Cigarette Advertising and the Body
Reviewing my collection of cigarette ads also led me in a new theoretical direction. While my work remains textual and gendered, I have turned to theories of “synaesthesia” and “sense memory” to argue that cigarette ads emphasized the corporeal—in particular, touch, taste, and respiration—to induce both women and men to smoke.
Student Examples: Cigarette Smoking on Television 2008
Our class project collected examples of how smoking is portrayed on more contemporary television.
LL: “On Friends, Rachel gets a new job at Ralph Lauren. On her first day, she finds out that her new boss and coworker are heavy smokers…Her coworkers frequently take smoking breaks, and Rachel discovers that they make all the major fashion decisions while they are outside lighting up..[Chandler’s] advice is to start smoking in order to fit in. This plan soon backfires for Rachel, since she can’t handle being a smoker…In one scene, Monica, the voice of reason, says she can’t be near Rachel because she smells too smoky… Ultimately, Rachel decides her health is more important than fitting in at work, and she develops a plan to try to make her coworkers quit. The program’s attitude toward smoking is definitely a negative one.”
KK: “On Seinfeld, a smoking ban was created in New York City, so Cosmo Kramer decided to open up a smoking lounge in his apartment, where people gathered to smoke. Whenever he opened the door, a big cloud of smoke would envelop the hallway. Kramer showed up at Jerry’s apartment, and his face was gray and sunken in and his teeth were yellow. His appearance was appalling and Jerry brought to his attention how smoking was affecting him. Kramer tried to sue the tobacco company because he claimed there was no warning that smoking would affect the way he looked. Kramer ended up dropping the lawsuit because the tobacco company used his picture on a billboard advertising their product. The program used humor to portray the consequences of smoking and the power and influence of tobacco corporations.”
NN: “Roseanne smoked on her series at one point, and she was ashamed of it. She would have to sneak into the bathroom and hide from her family to smoke. She also smoked in Dan’s garage until she got caught and had to confront her addiction…Instead of smoking, Roseanne wanted women viewers to know that no matter how much they were stressed as mothers, smoking is not a good escape.”
BB: “Dog Duane Chapman on DOG: Bounty Hunter is a smoker. He smokes three packs of Kools a day, and in one episode his wife points out that he needs to slow down. She worries that her children will not see their father grow old…Dog rationalizes his addiction to his job stress. He always lights up after he makes an arrest and offers a cigarette to the criminals on their way to jail.”
KMI: “Patty and Selma are working class spinsters, and their smoking is a running joke on The Simpsons. Every shot of the sisters shows them chain-smoking, and they have acquired deep, raspy voices from smoking. Their smoking habits are just one negative attribute. They live together at the Spinster City Apartments and work at Springfield’s DMV. They enjoy watching McGyver on TV and have been involved in many failed relationships and marriages. By linking the act of smoking to the Bouvier sisters, the show uses Patty and Selma as examples of what is not desirable in women.”
SS: “Carrie on Sex and the City was a smoker for most of the show’s duration. In the beginning of the series, her character glamorized her lifestyle. She smoked, drank, and partied at the hippest locations New York had to offer. As the show went on, she tried to quite several times, using the patch. When Americans began to change their overall view on smoking and smoking bans went into effect, the program showed that Carrie was turning into a social outcast, forced to smoke outside. At this point, smoking was no longer glamorized. Carrie even commented, ‘[Smoking] is killing me.’ The other three main characters did not smoke and always encouraged Carrie to quit. The episodes that showed how hard it was for her to get over this unhealthy habit sent a message to many women trying to quit and discouraged others in the audience from starting to smoke in the first place.”
Examples of Cigarette Ads on TV: Links
Click on the LINKS below to see some of television’s old ads on YouTube. Note the careful repetition of visual and aural cues that stimulate our sense memories, especially the freshness of the great outdoors. Watch how cigarettes were touched, savored, and inhaled in these commercials. And how men and women smoke cigarettes differently.
Salem: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=86lYG1V2-n4
Oasis: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uCRakl0dbK0&feature=related
(Smoking while water skiing!)
Newport: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=y_AD0oX1o0Y
(Demonstrates how TV ads were designed to “enter” your living room.)
Philip Morris: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=TzTGxY7gTCg&feature=related
(Lucy and Ricky Ricardo enjoy smoking.)
Kent: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=SF1uCN-jTJM&feature=related
Kent: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=01KGLWEPfIE&feature=related
Satiric video essay on smoking: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=fIN8MmMloZE&feature=related
References and Further Reading
Bordo, Susan. Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body.
Berkeley: U of California P, 1993.
Brandt, Allan M. The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence
of the Product That Defined America. NY: Basic Books, 2007.
Butler, Judith. “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in
Phenomenology and Feminist Theory.” Writing on the Body: Female
Embodiment and Feminist Theory. Ed. Katie Conboy, Nadia Medina, and
Sarah Stanbury. NY: Columbia UP, 1997. 401-17.
Caldwell, John. Televisuality: Style, Crisis and Authority in American
Television. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 1995.
Chishold, Dianne. “Climbing Like a Girl: An Exemplary Adventure in Feminist
Phenomenology.” Hypatia 23.1 (Jan-March 2008): 9-40.
“Effects of Nicotine on the Body.” NicotineGuide.com. 15 July 2007.
http://www.nicotineguide.com/effects-of-nicotine.php.
Fisher, Linda. “Introduction” and “Phenomenology and Feminism: Perspectives
on their Relation.” Feminist Phenomenology. Ed. Linda Fisher, and
Lester Embree. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000. 1-38.
Kluger, Richard. Ashes to Ashes: America’s Hundred-Year Cigarette War, the
Public Health, and the Unabashed Triumph of Philip Morris. NY: Alfred
A. Knopf, 1996.
Marks, Laura. The Skin of the Film: Intercultural Cinema, Embodiment, and the
Senses. Durham: Duke UP, 2000.
“Nicotine Addiction and Cigarettes.” American Lung Association Pamphlet.
1989. 22 August 2007.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0602/is_1989_August/ai_n18605911.
“Nicotine and Mood.” TobaccoDocuments.org. 14 July 1994. 22 August 2007.
http://tobaccodocuments.org/product_design/2025988295-8300.html.
“Pattern of Inhalation,” “Chart 3” and “Summary.” 25 June 2008.
profiles.nlm.nih.gov/NN/B/C/D/M/_/nnbcdm.pdf.
Pollay, R. W. “Exposure of US Youth to Cigarette Television Advertising in the
1960s.” Tobacco Control 3 (1994): 130-33.
Schudson, Michael. Advertising, The Uneasy Persuasion: Its Dubious Impact on
American Society. NY: Basic Books, Inc., 1984.
Shaviro, Steve. Connected: Or What It Means to Live in the Network Society.
Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2003.
Sobchack, Vivian. Carnal Thoughts: Embodiment and Moving Image Culture.
Berkeley: U of California P, 2004.
Sobel, Robert. They Satisfy: The Cigarette in American Life. NY: Anchor
Books, 1978.
“Tele’s Top 10 Bankrollers: Camels’ 800G as No. 1 Client.” Variety, 27 Oct.
1948: 23.
Tobin, M.J., G. Jenouri, and M.A. Sackner. “Subjective and Objective
Measurement of Smoke Inhalation.” Chest 82 (1982): 696-700.
Toll, B.A. and P.M. Ling. “The Virginia Slims Identity Crisis: An Inside Look at
Tobacco Industry Marketing to Women.” Tobacco Control 14 (2005):
172-80.
Whiteside, Thomas. Selling Death: Cigarette Advertising and Public Health. NY: Liveright, 1971.
Young, Iris Marion. On Female Body Experience: “Throwing Like a Girl” and Other Essays. NY: Oxford UP. 2005. 27-45.
Videography
Classic Cigarette Commercials (CCC), v. 1 and 2, tvdays.com
Classic Television, Cigarette Commercials (CTCC), Hollywood’s Attic
Classic Television (CT), Video Scrapbook #35 and 36, Hollywood’s Attic.
TV Cigarette Commercials: The Classics (TVCC), earthstation1.com.
YouTube (YT)
