In this brief moment from Netflix’s gloriously dark White House political drama House of Cards Claire Underwood (Robin Wright) catches her husband Frank (Kevin Spacey) using what she thinks is a cigarette. The number of cigarettes puffed was an integral part of Bridget Jones’ daily record.Īs vaping becomes ever more mainstream TV and film characters will surely be seen with their E-cigarettes in hand, each one a prop denoting a particular aspect of them. In each of these films they are nothing more than props, present to underline a character trait. The echoes of this mean that in Grease, a candy-coloured PG singalong, John Travolta’s Danny Zuko is rarely seen without a half-spent cigarette hanging out of his mouth witness Emma Stone’s graceful plumes as Grace Faraday in 2013’s Gangster Squad the defiance on the face of Brad Pitt’s Tyler Durden in Fight Club as he sucks on his spitty gasper. So how are the film and TV industries taking to the change? The link between being dangerous (and therefore cool) and puffing on a cigarette has roots in the noir genre. Even Albert Square’s resident human chimney Dot Cotton was seen taking a puff on an E-cigarette in one episode of EastEnders. A TV show like Mad Men made about today’s self-aware advertising industry would heavily feature vaping no doubt. A vape would have dramatically toned down that rebellious element. Adam Smith’s recent Trespass Against Us, starring Michael Fassbender and Brendan Gleeson, was thick with cigarette smoke as relief from the daily stress of a criminal life. The BBFC have thus far resisted their call to instantly slap an 18 rating on a film should it contain one scene of smoking. In the last few years The UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies have lobbied the BBFC to take action on scenes of smoking in movies. In real life we’ve conducted interviews with actors and directors who vaped throughout, filling the press rooms with clouds of vapour – something they would never be able to do with normal cigarettes. Zac Efron’s recent films Bad Neighbours and Dirty Grandpa had the star toking on an E-cigarette.
Johns Cusack and Goodman both played characters who vaped in Drive Hard and The Hangover Part III respectively. The second series of HBO’s hugely successful show True Detective featured vaping.
Johnny Depp taking a drag on his vape in 2010’s The Tourist was the first time the technology had been featured in such a high profile way.
Like any social revolution cinema plays a key role in bringing something new to the masses.
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