Smoking Mythology

Ben Stiller has a lot to answer for. His first film as a director, Reality Bites, which came out in 1994, is solely responsible for the romanticising of my smoking throughout my teen years, and even throughout my early twenties.

I'm sure you remember the scene where the Janeane Garofalo character has been to get an AIDS test and says the thing about Melrose Place and halter tops with chokers. You probably remember where Ethan Hawke plays the Violent Femmes song with his band Hey, That's My Bike and they edit out the swear word.

You might, however, not remember how prominently cigarettes featured in the film. Not unless you watched it at least fifty times like I did.

I came into the world at the tail end of Gen X. I was fifteen when grunge fashion became popular, and sixteen when Kurt Cobain died. And I was never a kid who wanted to be younger - I always, always wanted to be older. That film - it was like the ultimate fantasy of what I wanted to be one day.

There's one scene in particular that I remember. (Apologies for hideous picture. Streaming media + screencast software + second upload = bad quality. I'm sure there's a better way, but I don't know what it is... This is like those tapes of tapes of tapes we used to play in our cars.)





Did you hear it? Can smoking seem any more appealing than that?

In his book, Allen Carr talks about the way we are "brainwashed" by our own addictions, daily reinforcing the wrong-headed beliefs we hold about it. And how we block our minds to the reality of smoking, living in this hazy mist of justifications.

I don't think he explicitly talks about smoking mythology - but that's what I call it. Smoking mythology is what calls out to us again once we have quit; it builds up that appealing, alluring, romantic vision of cigarettes, and before you know it, the fog has settled in... and in the moment, you can't even manage to conjure up your reasons for giving up. You can't grasp them at all.

That's how I got here again: "You and me and five bucks."

Then there was the Writer Thing. All writers smoke, you know that, don't you? And more importantly, certainly all poets smoke. Yeah. They all sit in cafes in the middle of the night, alone, as groups of friends and couples dribble back from their nights out. But there they are, shivering, pen in one hand, cigarette in the other, writing genius. Or I know. There they are, standing on the footpath, waiting for a bus in the most bohemian and artistic part of a big city. It is cold, they are wearing a coat and hat, and they are holding a cigarette. And you can't tell whether it's smoke or steam coming out of their mouths, it's just this endless, wafting, white curl.

It's the comforting, chocolatey smell of a packet of Drum. It's the bronze, engraved cigarette case. It's the long night with an old friend, talking talking talking. It's road trips, and sunlight, and it's when you're sad too - it's comfort when you're grieving.

To a smoker, smoking is all of these things. And more. And their own.

But it's never what it really is. It isn't the awful rusty taste in your mouth in the morning, the nicotine-stained fingers, or the look on your child's face when they are calling you to come inside.

It isn't the money, the smell, the cough, or the disease.

No matter how much realer they are.