Cruella Goes Cold Turkey
The great non-smoking kerfuffle.
There is much gnashing of teeth from various corners of the media market about the Walt Disney character, Cruella De Vil (played by Emma Stone in its latest incarnation), no longer depicted puffing furiously on her stemmed cigarette. I am not keeping track from whence the wingeing is emanating but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s predominantly conservative or moderate voices who regularly whine about any of the slightest slights or the—supposed—onslaught of ‘cancel culture’.
It is true that Disney decided to remove the iconic cigarette holder due to a concern that it might make smoking appear unduly glamorous to small children.
It is also true that in spite of my watching the original 101 Dalmatians film numerous times in my youth I never once considered running out and purchasing a cigarette holder and cigarettes, or pilfering one or two from my mother’s purse or my father’s dresser. Cigarettes and cigarette smoking was yucky before I saw the movie, and cigarettes and cigarette smoking was yucky after I saw the movie. If anything, the fact she smoked AND wanted to make fur coats from dogs made smoking more repugnant than ever for me.
Another truth is that—at one point in time—PhillipMorris was one of the world’s largest food manufacturing and distribution companies. Their brands were Nabisco, Post, Kraft, Toblerone and too many others to list. They did their best to camouflage the Big Tobacco connection by naming the umbrella company responsible for the food end of the business, Altria. (The landing page for that link is the multinational goliath’s mea culpa.)
This was during the time Big Tobacco was on the hook for billions of dollars in damages because of their wanton disregard for the public health after spending nearly a century hiding the ill or deleterious effects of smoking tobacco and knowingly lacing their product with an addictive chemical. Even now I boycott products that were, are or may be associated with PhillipMorris.
On high school river trips I’d plant the seed in the minds of easily manipulated teens that perhaps Big Tobacco was also using nicotine in some of their favorite food products like Kraft Mac N Cheese, the cereals they love and the cookies they consumed. I said it with a wink but—honestly—who knows what multinational corporations like those are capable of? They pretended like cancer and tobacco had no correlation for most of the 20th century and, even though they were ‘brought to justice’, their tactics, strategy and game plan have been successfully transferred to Big Oil and I have a suspicion they are making a comeback by way of America’s newfound addiction to binge-watching.
Tobacco companies took their hits in the ‘90s and American society came out the better for it when public smoking became as socially acceptable as picking your nose or stomping on baby chicks with your Doc Martens. Bars and nightclubs that feared the backlash and what it might do to their business were pleasantly surprised when patrons, and would-be patrons, rejoiced and came out in force knowing they could now spend an evening listening to good music or guzzling craft beers without saturating their hair and clothing with enough smoke to give Godzilla emphysema.
Circling back around to Hollywood and the new Disney film featuring Cruella De Vil, Hollywood also did its part during that era to wean America off its cigarette addiction. I am not sure which decade it was (90s or Aughts) but few movies and hit television shows included protagonists as smokers. Smoking was no longer deemed glamorous and it faded into the background. Apparently, Hollywood made a conscious decision to join America in its effort to kick cigarette addiction to the curb.
Smoking advertising in general was banned by the verdicts brought down on Big Tobacco. Advertising disappeared from television, radio, billboards, bus signs. But it must have merely been a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ when it came to Hollywood because smoking is now officially back in ‘la la land’.
It’s annoying for a lifetime anti-smoker like me to watch.
Protagonists who have no good reason for their character to be associated with smoking are smoking. Hollywood is even portraying protagonists who would typically eschew smoking to suddenly take a drag after some particularly wild, scary or emotionally draining scene and—of course—after a sex scene. They even have heroines and heroes from bygone eras playing roles where there is no point in depicting them smoking. . .smoking.
So, I find it funny there is any stink over Disney’s Cruella De Vil being decoupled from her penchant for smoking.
I find it funny Disney might want to take credit for ‘protecting’ small children from the glamorization of smoking for this one movie while the glamorization of smoking is rising everywhere else in their media kingdom. (Disney might be the exception to the rule. I have not followed up with any research.)
I find it funny that pundits decry this one effort to stem the tide of pro-smoking behavior while the tide has clearly come back in in regards to the placement of a product that has probably killed more of us than all wars throughout history.
It’s personal for me. My mother died from lung cancer far too young. Decades of smoking took their final toll. I held a great enmity toward smoking—not smokers—and the people who perpetuate it, long before my mother succumbed to its effects. I’ve always considered it to be one of the human population’s greatest self-induced scourges.
I was proud to learn another Moore—from Mississippi, no less, which my entire family originated—spearheaded the effort to bring Big Tobacco to justice at the conclusion of the last century. Though we share no common ancestors as far as I am aware, it feels good to be associated by name with someone who was probably told they were tilting at windmills, but nevertheless, persisted.
Smoking is one of the least of our concerns these days. On the whole, it feels as if it has been “vanquished”. Or, at least, relegated to the sidelines. Especially with the pandemic, the erosion of democracy, the rise of an idiocracy, a warming planet and a backlash from all of those residing in ‘flyover country’ who want to blame immigrants for all the things being done to them by corporatists.
Ah, well.
Something to keep an eye on.
Seattle Times’ Danny Westneat on the efficacies of the vaccines and the substantial divide being created by those who have and those who have not. Good read.
Also, Michael Harriot’s post titled, Don’t Worry White People, Democracy Ain’t Going Nowhere. From The Root. Always a good read.
Been away for a bit. It’s a good thing. A very good thing. Been in too good of a place to rant, be riled or even gloomily ruminate. Besides, I needed to come up for air after more than a year of nonstop blathering. Love y’all for reading! - JLM