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| - If you're badass, you smoke. No, really. For some reason, smoking is used as a shorthand in fiction to say that someone is a badass. It probably has its roots in Fifties rebel flicks, or '40s Film Noir, or maybe the somewhat deeper idea that someone who cares nothing about their health will willingly expose themselves to pain on a regular basis, or maybe the play of smoke on the screen around a character in slow-mo is just that damn cool -- but whatever it is, there's no denying that nine times out of ten a fictional smoker is a Badass. No childlike or upbeat characters smoke. The smoker is the Anti-Hero, the Badass Normal, or the Deadpan Snarker, whereas the non-smoker is the Genki Girl, The Messiah, the Kid Hero.
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| abstract
| - If you're badass, you smoke. No, really. For some reason, smoking is used as a shorthand in fiction to say that someone is a badass. It probably has its roots in Fifties rebel flicks, or '40s Film Noir, or maybe the somewhat deeper idea that someone who cares nothing about their health will willingly expose themselves to pain on a regular basis, or maybe the play of smoke on the screen around a character in slow-mo is just that damn cool -- but whatever it is, there's no denying that nine times out of ten a fictional smoker is a Badass. No childlike or upbeat characters smoke. The smoker is the Anti-Hero, the Badass Normal, or the Deadpan Snarker, whereas the non-smoker is the Genki Girl, The Messiah, the Kid Hero. And you can forget about the millions of ways cigarettes can kill you or make your life miserable. Fictitious smokers are hardly ever affected by so much as a smoker's cough, let alone shortness of breath, lung cancer, gum disease, or heart disease. No-one else minds, either - the only people who complain are going to be the naggy Sidekick, joykilling bureaucrat or the irritating little brat who tags along outside the lower boundary of the Competence Zone, and it gives the hero a good chance to sarcastically brush them off and show how cool and viciously witty they are. There may be a pragmatic element to this trope, given the predicted lifespans of most people in Badass professions. The prospect of dying of lung cancer in twenty years loses much of its sting when there's a real chance of dying of high-velocity lead poisoning tomorrow. This is one of the reasons smoking is still popular in high-risk professions, like the military, or convenience store cashiers. While this trope is dying away as smoking becomes less socially acceptable, it's notable enough in older media. Interestingly, shows aimed at younger audiences don't seem allowed to smoke. Since smoking in Japan hardly even raises an eyebrow, this trope is also common in anime and manga. In older media from before the Surgeon General's report on tobacco use, smoking conveyed maturity, experience, and social acceptability. The "Stop Having Fun!" Guys character in an old movie or TV show will almost always be a non-smoker, as will be the male Neat Freak and Ambiguously Gay and the female Maiden Aunt, Purity Sue, and Straw Feminist. Basically, the non-smoker was thought to be no fun at all, and (unless they're a youngish Purity Sue) socially transgressive in some way. The message was that most non-smokers were weirdos you didn't want to know, which might be part of the reason why people of that generation refused to believe the Surgeon General for so long. As a side note, much like the Drink Order, the actual forms of tobacco smoked seem to fall into tropes of their own. Cigarettes are smoked by the typical cool badasses. Pipes are smoked by wizened ancient old wizards and martial artists. Cigars, if they're not being smoked by Da Chief or a soldier, are typically the favored form of tobacco for gangsters and Corrupt Corporate Executives. At one time pipes looked more "intellectual" than cigarettes, so a professor or scientist, even quite a young one, would smoke a pipe, while policemen, soldiers and other men of action smoked cigarettes. Nowadays pipes denote old codgers or homages to Sherlock Holmes. Smoking fetish fiction has its own conventions, subdivided down to brand. Generally speaking, housewives and other prole heroines smoke Virginia Slims or Marlboro Lights. Career women smoke Mores. Black women smoke cheap cigars, such as Gold and Milds (this is Truth in Television); "street smart" white women do the same. (Cigars without holders seldom appear.) Older women smoke unfiltereds, usually Pall Malls or Camels. Black men go for Kools. The Vamp uses a holder, which is often campily long. Goths, Byronic Romantics and bohemian types wouldn't be caught dead smoking anything but clove cigarettes. People in the "ghetto" go for Newport menthols. Compare Stealth Cigarette Commercial, Smoking Is Glamorous, and Cigar Chomper. See also Good Smoking, Evil Smoking. Examples of Smoking Is Cool include:
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