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Vintage Commercials Show Smoking As A Feminist Act

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Baroness
06/29/09

In reply to Vintage Commercials Show Smoking As A Feminist Act
Can I just say how much I love the broad in the first commercial? She strides towards the camera, lights up, looks at the camera with contempt- Yeah, I'm smokin'. What's it to youze? Then strides away to go work the casino floor or something. Tough cookie, I love her. She might be Jerri Blank's biological mother. Great wig.

The man in the last commercial reminds me of a very fey Ewan McGregor.
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Vivien Smith-Smythe-Smith
06/29/09

In reply to Vintage Commercials Show Smoking As A Feminist Act
Shit- I was so distracted by trying to figure out if the male voice over in the ads was a Kiwi or an Australian, that I completely forgot to celebrate my tailor-made, combustible empowerment!
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NewsBunny
06/29/09

In reply to Vintage Commercials Show Smoking As A Feminist Act
I was always a Malboro Lights girl myself.

It's been ten years. I miss those Malboros.
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emilyanne
06/29/09

@NewsBunny: ha i scorned lights as weak cigarettes, i was a reds girl and a gitane sometimes and occasionally unfiltered galoise - why yes I did treat smoking as a contest since you ask.
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LvV
06/29/09

In reply to Vintage Commercials Show Smoking As A Feminist Act
RE: Carrie Bradshaw

Virtually every teen girl interviewed as part of a new [2006] Health Department report on smoking said [Sex and the City] influenced her deadly habit.

"Whenever I think of how to smoke, it's the way Sarah Jessica Parker exhales, and I'm like obsessed," one 10th-grader said. "I love her, and the way she exhales is very memorable."

[www.nydailynews.com]
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The Lone Scout
06/29/09

@LvV: Yet another reason to stamp out equine smoking.
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Pizza!Pizza!Pizza!
06/30/09

@LvV: You know, I hadn't really thought of this before. While she couldn't have known how much a racy HBO show would have been loved by teenage girls (and really, they shouldn't have been watching) using a cigarette as TV shorthand for weakness was pretty irresponsible.
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J.D.Regent
06/29/09

In reply to Vintage Commercials Show Smoking As A Feminist Act
Good old corporate America, co-opting feminism since before it was cool.

It's kind of weird how smoking is considered manly because of the phallic nature of the cigarette but since we are putting it in our mouths it seems appropriately heterosexist to attach the action to women.

However I must admit my own switch from Parliaments to Capri Light 100s (now strictly smoking rollies) coincided with me breaking up with my high school boyfriend and getting my first girlfriend. Feminist!
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HarpMadness
06/29/09

@J.D.Regent: I remember Capri Lights ... The package was so pretty.

Point? Oh, corporate America. They will co-opt anything!
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J.D.Regent
06/29/09

@HarpMadness: they also taste delicious. as far as cigarettes go.
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LaFemme
06/29/09

@J.D.Regent: This is what I smoke. Everyone thinks they are funny looking, but I love them. And they really are good!
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NatelysWhoresKidSister
06/29/09

In reply to Vintage Commercials Show Smoking As A Feminist Act
Know who else is a completely gorgeous icon of smoldering tobacco-scented sexiness?

Why, me, of course.

Ayn Rand considered it man's triumph over nature.
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J.D.Regent
06/29/09

@NatelysWhoresKidSister: and Nature cackles back as you lie in your hospital bed wheezing your way to an early grave. (Smoker here, no judgment).
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save jinger
06/29/09

In reply to Vintage Commercials Show Smoking As A Feminist Act
Cigarette smoking is a type of oral fixation.

Oral fixations stem from breastfeeding.

Breastfeeding is an amazing thing that women do.

Women doing amazing things are often feminists.

Thus, cigarette smoking is, in fact, a feminist act.
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Flackette Goes Retro
06/29/09

In reply to Vintage Commercials Show Smoking As A Feminist Act
Being a slave to tobacco companies is the least liberated thing I can think of. There is nothing feminist about bowing to marketing campaigns asking you to spend exorbitant amounts of money on addictive carcinogens.
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BabyJane
06/29/09

In reply to Vintage Commercials Show Smoking As A Feminist Act
I was a heavy smoker for years and I have the sexy burn holes in my clothes to show for it.
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morninggloria
06/29/09

In reply to Vintage Commercials Show Smoking As A Feminist Act
Everything can be a feminist act. Showing disrespect to your male sexual partner, eating foods that are terrible for you, belching loudly, laughing at The Poor, ignoring your kids. Even clubbing baby seals can be a feminist act. Why do the boys have a monopoly on being buttholes?
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Rare Affinity
06/29/09

In reply to Vintage Commercials Show Smoking As A Feminist Act
I don't understand why otherwise smart, intelligent young women are still smoking. They don't have the excuse that they didn't realise how addictive and life threatening it could be. More to the point, why indulge in an activity that causes premature ageing and gives you bad breath. Vanity alone would have stopped me from ever taking it up.
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linnyt is a walking cliché
06/29/09

@Rare Affinity: I see it as having a weakness and an addiction. I don't see it as empowered. To me, a regular smoker has lost control.
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AtomiClash: humanitarian misanthrope
06/29/09

@Rare Affinity: hmmm I started smoking as a rebellious thing in high school. I've smoked on and off for almost a decade. It was never a weight issue (I was at my heaviest when I was smoking the most), and if I divulged where I work, you'd know I am super aware of the damage it does.

The bottom line is, I like smoking, and I know I'm not alone. It is my five minute break from everything (even if I'm doing more than just smoking). Smoking, while it raises the blood pressure, releases tension for me. And while I would never suggest anyone start, and certainly am a proponent for quitting (but let's face it, quitting only sticks when you are really committed. I've been cigarette free for up to 6 months, which counts as having quit), the second they come out with a cancer-free cigarette, I'm going to be on those things so fast it's not even funny.
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greengrey
06/29/09

In reply to Vintage Commercials Show Smoking As A Feminist Act
You forgot GG as a woman who smokes.

I like smoking, it's a social anxiety defense mechanism. Nothing says "I don't give a fuck" like smoking. It makes my hands seem more graceful.

And it keeps me regular! Smoking is my favorite crutch, next to drinking. Which actually seems really "un-feminist" out of me since my smoking is mostly done out of weakness.
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inabook
06/29/09

@greengrey (raidersofthelostSTAR): I hate smoking, because it makes me cough, but I loooove nicotine highs, and if I owned a hookah, would probably be addicted. Its a good thing I only smoke hookah rarely, or cloves when drunky, because my throat is still sensitive enough to the harshness to keep me away from it.
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judgingamy
06/29/09

In reply to Vintage Commercials Show Smoking As A Feminist Act
I remember in Women's Studies we had to read an article that basically argued that women who smoked were more liberated, since it showed they didn't care about being "good girls." I smoke, but it was a dumb article. There's no way to spin Big Tobacco as feminist.
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AtomiClash: humanitarian misanthrope
06/29/09

@judgingnora: especially since Big Tobacco is pretty much synonymous with Old White Men.
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Penny
06/29/09

In reply to Vintage Commercials Show Smoking As A Feminist Act
I smoked for a few years and NEVER felt hot while doing so. That said, I think that with certain film characters and in print, it can be really sexy. There's even a blog called Le Smoking, dedicated to photographs of smoking models.

Somehow my Red Bull/Camel habit during my commute didn't translate to quite the same level of sexiness as Stone's crotch shot.
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Schrodinger's Cat
06/29/09

In reply to Vintage Commercials Show Smoking As A Feminist Act
Women smoked long before 1969; I know because I watch Mad Men!

And I remember that direct mail campaign... Those cigarettes have shiny, pink foil camels on the filters. Très subtle.
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TildeMarks
06/29/09

@Schrodinger's Cat: Camel No. 9's...like Chanel No.5, only not.
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AtomiClash: humanitarian misanthrope
06/29/09

@Schrodinger's Cat: My grandmother's doctor tried to convince her to take up smoking for her nerves in the '50s. She tried it (but hated it). Oh how times have changed!
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BeckySharper
06/29/09

@Schrodinger's Cat: I love how on Mad Men they like to tweak the sensibilities of modern viewers by showing pregnant women smoking, or having two suburban moms light up in their babies' nursery...
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Cicada
06/29/09

@BeckySharper: They used to tell pregnant women to smoke to keep from gaining too much weight. That is why my grandmother started smoking.
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