Smoking: Hot or Cool?

I found our class discussion on “Hot vs. Cool” to be very enthralling, however there was one item that I found particularly troubling in regards to the classification procedure. Lauren Bacall, I believe, did not belong in the “hot” category. To me, Bacall represents one of the absolute prime examples of “Feminine Cool.” There was a conspicuous underrepresentation of women in the “Cool” category, which at first struck me as potentially discriminatory (not necessarily exclusive to the attitude of the class, but of popular media and culture in general), and, in line with our discussion, seemed to me to provide evidence for the legitimacy of the sexist view of women as being strictly “hot” commodities vs. men as being iconic creators and innovators. However, upon further scrutiny, androgyny and transgressiveness in general seemed to be a prevalent theme in the “cool” category: from Isabella Rossellini to David Bowie. Lauren Bacall certainly did not fall in line with many of the contemporaneous standards of femininity required of the proto-typical Hollywood starlet of her time, although she was incredibly striking to look at. One of the most iconic shots is of her smoking a cigarette in “To Have and Have Not;” a very masculine, and what used to be, a “cool” activity.

Which leads me to the questions, and to somewhat of a tangent shift: how has smoking managed to transition from identifiably “cool” to “hot”? Or is it neither? Is “hot” necessarily always bad? Smoking to me epitomizes how activities are subject to the contemporaneous ideologies and attitudes of a particular time. It seems that the once “cool” smoking past time has been overshadowed, and discriminated against, by the “cool” green eco-friendly trend; a shift from a contemplative self-indulgence to an active philanthropic indulgence. The latter now chastises the former for its selfishness and through attempts to eradicate its presence from public spaces, it has elevated the idea and the rights of the environment and the community against those of the individual, which somewhat conflicts with the fact that smoking is often a social activity. Although the green trend’s scope and ambition seems to be long-reaching and potentially timeless (Harrison’s criteria for “cool” as per our class discussion), it is just that: a trend. That is not to say environmentalism is included in this; I am referencing a particular movement that was launched by environmentalist beliefs and ideals, and that is the highly commercial green/eco-friendly movement that is very heavily steeped in consumerism and subject to marketing tactics, and therefore is highly individualistic and it remains unsure as to whether or not people will awake to this hypocrisy.

Which brings me back to Bacall: smoking, once a pervasive motif in classic cinema, has been actively protested against and almost entirely eliminated, and yet people still react positively to Bacall’s scene in “To Have and Have Not” in which she smokes. Does smoking, or watching others smoking, present some kind of outlet for contemporary audiences and a nostalgia for something lost from our culture? To close, I see smoking torn between “cool” and “hot;” while its health risks are now well-known, people cannot seem to escape its ambiguous allure which connotes selfish, care-free attitude and, especially for women, a space in which to transgress against feminine ideals of selflessness and cleanliness.