Jumat, 06 Februari 2009

CIGARETTES, THE POWER OF THE IMAGE I

One reason smoking is so prevalent today is that it has become a well-established part of our culture. When cigarette manufacturing first became a major industry at the turn of the century, the typical smoker was a middle-class working man. But during the 1920s men of all professions and backgrounds turned to the cigarette. Fashionable young women joined them; perhaps they thought smoking made them seem more sophisticated. By the beginning of the 1940s, advertising had started to build shining images for cigarettes.

Smokers seemed to be the heroes of the day-fighter pilots, soldier in the foxhole, tank driver, good-looking doctors, pretty nurses-and the word was trumpeted on the radio, in the newspapers and on billboards across the country. Then, after World War II, came the visual suggestion that cigarettes smokers were the good guy. The smoker was a tough, hand some private detective in a trench coat. The right cigarette became a sexual lure, attracting sweater-girl pinup beauties into the waiting arms of handsome young men. One cigarette advertiser even conferred a kind of medical certification on smoking, claiming that more doctors smoked their cigarettes than any other leading brands.

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