A Mad Men guide to
smoking:
From the first episode to
the last, Cigarettes are everywhere in Mad Men. Cigarettes are the symbol of
the tobacco industry’s grip upon 1960’s American society, from men to women and
as the series develops, children. Lucky Strike is a cigarette company and the
main financial account that the advertising firm Sterling Cooper holds. The
fact that the company is solely based around the income of a tobacco company is
used to cement this idea that America was fuelled by smoking habits – it
boosted the economy, it was an area of social conversation, almost something
fashionable.
In America in 1964 the
Surgeon General's report linked smoking tobacco to the development of lung
cancer; which is what Betty Draper is diagnosed with later in the series. This
storyline was chosen to emulate the consciousness of 1960’s America, from
smoking as a social norm, to understanding the effects of cigarette smoking–
was smoking bad for you?
‘Blowing Smoke’
With the loss of the ad
agency’s main income – Lucky Strike cigarette company, Don Draper launched a
counter-attack on the tobacco industry, something radical and controversial of
the time. In a letter to the New York Times, titled ‘Why I’m quitting tobacco’.
Within the letter, Draper refuses to sell tobacco again, as he wants to keep
selling a product that is killing people.
Although this is a
fictional letter, with little historical accuracy, it gives an interesting
insight into the 1960’s society. Ignorance of the issue was shown, although
with Draper disputing the issue of cigarettes it does show this consciousness
growing in 1960’s America.
Perhaps the biggest
signal to the health effects of smoking is shown through the character of Betty
Draper. Towards the end of the series her character is diagnosed with lung
cancer. Why is this so important? It is the physical representation of what
Donald Draper and surgeons of the era were feeling – smoking kills and
threatens your life, Betty was needed to really drum this message home.
It is interesting that
this storyline is thrown in. By watching
Mad Men, the craving for cigarettes is brought out of all of us, watching your
favourite characters smoke consistently places cigarettes in the forefront of
your mind. Was this a worry for the producers? Was this storyline of Betty
contracting cancer put in for a modern-day audience? Or does it make us feel
the same as a 1960’s American men or women? The temptation to smoke is
presented to us, making it almost impossible to ignore, a similar feeling for
young adults of the era. Although with Draper’s letter and Betty’s health it
also presents the criticisms of the era, that there was some disgust towards
cigarettes in the era.
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