Smoking allowed again on the big screen

Ever since Jane Birkin passed away, our Pinterest boards have been flooded with photos of the couple, her and Serge, holding a Davidoff cigarette delicately between her lips, a testament to an era when smoking in front of one's partner during a luxurious dinner at a restaurant wouldn't have been considered strange or rude. After all, intoxicating our lungs used to be cool for many decades, following the footsteps of celebrities with unhealthy lifestyles for whom nicotine was the healthiest substance ingested (Chloe Sevigny, Alexa Chung, the Olsen Sisters, Sex and the City's Carrie Bradshaw, Bridget Jones, Rachel from Friends, and so on). And if someone has regretted it today - "Pass me my vape" sings Lana Del Rey in her new album - viral images of Kate Moss emerging from the water in a bright green dress with her faithful cigarette between her fingers still circulate. Despite fitness gurus, scientific research, and new laws regarding public spaces rightfully scaring us to death about the consequences of smoking on our health, here we are again, standing outside venues, desperately searching for a lighter. In 2022, an investigation by The New York Times raised the issue: the pandemic has reignited the smoking problem among new generations. Since then, in cinema, streaming platforms, and on screens big and small, smoking has once again been permitted.

The Guardian has observed how the entertainment industry has quickly adapted to a change in direction among the new generations. Although members of Gen Z have grown up with the clear awareness that smokers are 15 to 30 times more likely to develop lung cancer and are bombarded with images of radiant-looking influencers sipping matcha tea and kombucha drinks, cigarette sales increased for the first time in 20 years in 2020. Because, after the pandemic, decadence and fatalistic behaviors seem to have permeated the collective consciousness and have lingered. What was a disgusting vice worthy of reproach during dinner with friends in recent years is now, once again, very cool. The Idol is the most recent testament to this. In the controversial new series created by Sam Levinson, cigarettes become a sort of co-star, to the extent that in the first five minutes, Lily-Rose Depp's character, Jocelyn, smokes three cigarettes while wrapped in a red satin robe, adorned with lacquered nails and sunglasses, portraying a caricature of a seductive '60s diva. The resurgence of cigarettes on screen has slowly crept in: Wednesday's protagonist, Jenna Ortega, and The Queen's Gambit star, Anya Taylor-Joy, both icons of Generation Z, are often photographed smoking on the streets of LA. Among streaming services, it is Netflix that is primarily responsible for the resurgence of this trend.

Despite promises to reduce tobacco use on screen following criticism received for Stranger Things, The Queen's Gambit, and The Umbrella Academy, each episode of these shows still featured extensive tobacco use. Last year, we saw Natasha Lyonne flaunting her own vice in Russian Doll with her '70s outfits, and in And Just Like That, Carrie Bradshaw may have lost Mr. Big, but she certainly hasn't lost her passion for smoking. Among the 39 Academy Award nominations this year, 28 films depicted smoking in some form on screen. Considering that teenagers are two to three times more likely to start smoking themselves if exposed to the "glamorization" of smoking on screen, the dangers are well-documented. It's just that suddenly, no one seems to care anymore. After all, at this rate, it's more likely for Gen Z to die from some cataclysm caused by climate change than from smoking. Might as well indulge in a few vices for the time we have left.