The Kiddy Pool: Childhood Innocence Up in Smoke

Last updated on: January 15, 2013 at 6:00 am by Erin Wyble Newcomb

The Kiddy Pool: Childhood Innocence Up in Smoke 2013-01-14T21:02:28-07:00 Erin Wyble Newcomb

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Every week in The Kiddy Pool, Erin Newcomb confronts one of many issues that parents must deal with related to popular culture.

“Where most Americans see a juxtaposition of purity and corruption, one that offends our sensibilities, those views of children and smoking are not shared everywhere around the world.”

I remember eating candy cigarettes when I was a kid. It was a stick of bubblegum, with sugar powder in the wrapper, so you could blow out the powder and pretend to smoke. These candies are now sold as “nostalgia” products, so that makes me feel super, but that’s by the by. Recalling my experience with candy cigarettes is sort of like watching scenes from Mad Men where pregnant women smoke and parents pile the kids in the front seat of the car with no seat belts. Times have changed.

And, with regard to childhood smoking (yeah, even candy) and seat-belt usage, I feel that’s for the best. Despite that claim, I was intrigued by the new Frieke Janssens exhibit “Smoking Kids”. The headline in The Atlantic asks “5-Year-Olds with Cigarettes: Glamorous or Hideous?” I think, in a way, it’s both, and that it’s supposed to be both. The images themselves are beautiful, and, no, the children were not given actual cigarettes. I particularly like the one entitled “Ringlings” and the way it recalls a child-version of Betty Draper Francis, just rolled out of bed and ready for a morning smoke. Just to be clear, I don’t think that children should smoke (or adults for that matter), and I don’t think that’s Janssens’ argument either; the purpose of her art seems more about deconstructing social norms rather than advocating personal or social policies. To that end, her art is effective. It’s disturbing to see children smoking, just like my memory of the candy cigarettes is disquieting.

What’s different is that those candies had their heyday in a cultural moment where smoking was not nearly as vilified as it is today. Joe Camel stuck around until 1997 and legislation to make bars and restaurants smoke free in NYC didn’t happen until 2003. The anti-smoking crusade is relatively new, much newer than the history of old-Hollywood glamour where cigarettes and smoke worked as props and plot devices to signal desire and romance and power. Now, villains are more likely to be the smokers, and smoke signals evil not because smoking has changed, but because our cultural perceptions of smoking and smokers have changed. For an irreverently funny analysis of smoking, check out the 2005 film Thank You for Smoking. One anti-tobacco lobbyist tries to replace cigarettes in old films with other props that look absurdly out of place, while the PR rep. for big tobacco pushes for Hollywood inclusion:

Jeff Megall: Sony has a futuristic sci-fi movie they’re looking to make.
Nick Naylor: Cigarettes in space?
Jeff Megall: It’s the final frontier, Nick.
Nick Naylor: But wouldn’t they blow up in an all oxygen environment?
Jeff Megall: Probably. But it’s an easy fix. One line of dialogue. ‘Thank God we invented the… you know, whatever device.’”

The movie clearly pushes the idea that Big Tobacco and its affiliates are the epitome of evil. It’s that wickedness, so obvious to our culture today, that makes Janssens’ work so disturbing. Children are supposed to be innocent, pure, protected.

That’s the angle a Thai anti-smoking campaign takes, where kids ask for a light to manifest to adults how damaging cigarettes are. But where the interpretation of smoking as sinful is now obvious in the U.S., that’s simply not the case in every country; take China, for instance, where companies see a growing market for a product that’s declining here in the states. Janssen is not American, and her art points to the reality that readings of children and readings of smoking are not universal but particular. Where most Americans see a juxtaposition of purity and corruption, one that offends our sensibilities, those views of children and smoking are not shared everywhere around the world. When I look at “Ringlings,” I don’t feel revulsion or umbrage, but sadness. It’s sort of like looking at the child version Betty Draper Francis and recognizing why she smokes, why she’s an addict and all-around miserable human, because she, like so many children (fictional and non-fictional) never knew the innocence and protection that we pay lip-service to at the altar of childhood nostalgia. The belief in childhood as a state of untainted goodness is, one might say, merely smoke and mirrors.

Previous Post

January 14, 2013

Where is God at "Downton Abbey"?

Next Post

January 15, 2013 In Which Jodie Foster Feels All The Things

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Asides Elsewhere Featured Film Games General Culture Headline Literature Music Of the Moment Podcast Politics RetroPost Sports Technology Television Uncategorized Viral

Select a Month February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz