Humphrey Bogart stands out in the rain and lights a cigarette as he delivers one of the most iconic lines in cinema history, "we'll always have Paris". John Wayne and his men battle through Iwo Jima and raise the flag before turning to his men and saying "how about a cigarette". Whether your saying goodbye to your "sweetheart" in Morocco or winning a heroic battle in world war two cigarettes are always there as an instrument of cool. Cigarette companies have been able to accomplish something incredible; make cigarettes rebellious while at the same time not taboo. Think of one thing that John Wayne and Barack Obama have in common? Cigarette smoking. Cigarettes may be the only thing that's truly bipartisan. Smoking is not only percieved as something that looks cool it's smoething that's excepted by general society. So my point is smoking is a way for people to be rebellious and be conformists at the same time.
Everybody knows that smoking is bad for you. Anybody who started smoking after the 1950's knew that there was a great potential for death. But knowing that why do people continue to smoke? It's also well established that we are a sucker for good advertising but smoking goes beyond good advertising. Tabacco advertising has been banned from television and radio since 1972. Advertising on billboards has been banned since 1999, but people continue to pick up the habbit everyday. If there ever was an example of how desperate people are to be cool it's smoking. Flipping through the gossip pages your bound to find a picture of Leonardo Dicaprio or Keither Sutherland having a smoke, but that still leaves much to be desired. Your average fourteen year old smoker probably wouldn't even know who the marlboro man is. So it must be a combination of things, the masculinity that comes with smoking, the image, and finally our own emptiness. Cigarettes can appear as a buffer for someones depression and anger towards the world. A true symbol of "f#%* it".
When talking to a smoker seldom do they examine their own reasoning for smoking. Most people give a response like "Well I started when I was a dumb kid and now I'm addicted". These people give these responses because their scared to face the fact that they were suckered in by philip morris and television and now they can't get out. It's quite dpersing to think that your sub-conscious is willing to do engage in a deadly foul smelling activity that's detremental to your health for apearences sake. But that's the world we live in. Even in a world where death is the scarriest thing on are minds, cool still takes precedent. What has been carved into our minds is that looking sharp for a corporation after your money is worth dying for. But hey come to where the flavor is.
In conclusion I knowledge that the rate of smoking has gone down accross the western world. But I'm not convinced it's because of our health. I think it's a combination of less exposure to cigarette advertising and rising cigarette prices. Which I think backs up my claim. We were not smart enough to take the health risks into account and make a desicion for ourselves. It took the government sheilding us and teling us to use something else that will kill us for people to back up. Cool is most certainly the priority of our lives, and we live accordingly. No matter who it is there will always be someone out there to guide us into the next trend, and we will always be there to give our lives for that trend.
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Will,
ReplyDeleteInteresting focus for the paper.
I'd like to read more analysis. What is it about cigarettes (because pipes and cigars are much less common) that makes them such a symbol of cool? From packaging to lighting to bumming to standing to pleasuring to sucking - there's a lot to analyze.
For your 36 - please re-read the assignment - your current response isn't very na'vi.
comment on will's cool paper
ReplyDeletehey will i decided to comment on you rough draft for homework 36
I'll just start by saying that i really think your topic of cigarettes and their role on the cool stage is really original. its an interesting angle that is definitely worth exploring. I think your papers overall theme and main idea is that cigarettes have become one of the main symbols of cool and further more cigarettes have become the one truly explosive and predominate aspect of the cool society it has had the unique ability to show rebellion to our neighborhood and conformity to cool heroes.
we go to great lengths to accomplish the cool pose, we even risk our own health to look heroic.
When someone picks up a cigarette for the first time they leave their traditional archetype and shift to a rebel in their own or their parents eyes and a conformist to the other rebels. the different cool poses we conform to are like the and what can make this so bad is that in some cases we as a society distort the truth, rejecting the realization that what we are doing to be cool is hurting us because it has become defining component in our everyday life. Like how so many people still smoke even though it is proven to hurt us.
Your comment that cigarettes show how desperately we want to be cool is really insightful and really worth expanding. That could possible become an entire argument. You should definitely go into more detail on how cigarettes allow us to look cool but also why we want to look so cool and why its tangible items that don't show anything real. If you do end up expanding on why we act so cool in your final paper you could use the lecture from matt fried for evidence. also i agree with what andy said there is a lot for you to analyze what he said specifically about how its cigarettes and not pipes is really interesting and worth going into.
Will,
ReplyDeleteSo you bascially were saying that smoking is a way for people to be cool like John Wayne, but still be independant and badasses because they are being rebelious and "stupid."
Something you could include goes back to the early days of when smoking was being outlawed everywhere and yet it was still strong, They were increasing the taxes and yet people still found a way. It all about the ability to find a way to smoke for the reason that they can say they do,
What you could do to improve this would be to just kind of move it forward.
You need to work in details, right now it is just a shell, then again it is just a draft, i think it was a strong beginning.
This is a good paper, it is much better then the nonsense i have as of now, but yeah.
cool story bro
sam
To Will C
ReplyDeleteAhh, You did your rough draft. I was waiting for it. I got to say Will, you have a interesting topic. The last time I check to see if you have your rough draft, you were working on the computer room. You came up with a fantastic idea in like what, 20 minutes or so. That's impressing. One thing I like about your draft is that you came up with a great intro to start your paper, then you just went in dept; telling us how "horrible" cigarette do to your health.
You went very hard on your second paragraph. You set good examples and provides excellence evidences to support your argument. "A true symbol of "F #%*" I though that was awesome of how you include that.
I really think your topic was strong and it is nice to read a paper like this once in a while. Your main idea of this topic demonstrate how the community is influence to act cool by lighting a cigar.
Theres only one or two problem. I really dont think I should point this out, but i seen you smoke and in terms on your draft; stating how cigarette is very bad for your health. Ask yourself, why are you still lighting up a cigarette. Why are you still contaminate your body?
Your paper is awesome Will. I just think your need to brainstorm more ideas of how teenagers try to be cool. Put yourself in the sistuation, do you wever want to be cool? Overall good shit. I want to read more. Keep it up.