tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580771530471531574.post3465506440292387734..comments2023-07-12T09:16:45.437-04:00Comments on The Cinema: Let the Cleansing BeginTed Pigeonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04789041055263853568noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580771530471531574.post-14119918018337790122007-07-26T10:24:00.000-04:002007-07-26T10:24:00.000-04:00Good observations, Pacze. Your comments concerning...Good observations, Pacze. Your comments concerning the cinematically evocative nature of smoking is partly what has inspired my post. There are few who would argue that cigarette smoking is harmful to one's health, but since when are movies nothing more than advertisements? The cultural understanding of representation (especially visual representation) is so misplaced in its being geared towards the promotional end of signification, as if movies are nothing more than advertisements. <BR/><BR/>Especially in the 40's and 50's smoking was much more a cultural touchstone than it is today, for sure, which is why it was practically fetishized in noir cinema and most of mainstream Hollywood movie making. Now, of course, its the punching bad of institutions of power, and it is really just the trendy thing to do. <BR/><BR/>So affected are we by these notions of commodification that we seem to have culturally bought into to these movements of "cleaning up" entertainment. Movements such as banning smoking in cinema only appears positive from within this mold and the fact that this movement has so much support and is now beginning is indicative of our saturated state of consumption.<BR/><BR/>Sure, Hollywood cinema is beginning to embody productness in its movies, as many of them are watered down, PC-style advertisements with no aesthetic value, meant to bludgeon viewers into passivity and turn them into consumers. Representations of smoking in said movies are usually restricted to villains or heroes in need of saving.<BR/><BR/>Smoking, like many things, can no longer aesthetically exist and mean outside its simple representative comparrisons of evil, villainy, or addiction. It is on this level that we are conditioned to interpret images, which are much more complex than this. However, this movement has invaded our culture to the point that images are now embodying the cliches and easily swallowable representations. <BR/><BR/>The Disney ban on smoking likely won't mean much for Disney movies. But I fear that it represents the beginning of a greater inching towards passive consumption and mindless representation. All one needs to do to understand how this war on smoking affects <I>all</I> of cinema is look to the changing ratings process. The MPAA in many ways holds the keys to our cultural interpretation of movies. By implementing a harsher ruling on images of smoking, small studios are just as affected as the larger ones, which means even movies that reject Hollywood commodification are influenced by this. In fact, they are perhaps more influenced by it since ratings affect many economic factors contributing to distribution and promotion, which all movies need to be seen and in turn produced.<BR/><BR/>These are just some of the reasons why this news really, really scares me.Ted Pigeonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04789041055263853568noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580771530471531574.post-86817334796667113792007-07-25T17:46:00.000-04:002007-07-25T17:46:00.000-04:00Good article.I've been watching a fair share of Am...Good article.<BR/><BR/>I've been watching a fair share of American films from the '40s, '50s and '60s recently, and I'm stunned at how cinematic the cigarette is. How it's manipulated, used, filmed can alter emotion, create menace, convey eroticism. A scene in which a character, in essence, does nothing can, with a cigarette, be about something.<BR/><BR/>Therefore, in addition to the very good political/ideological reasons you give, I think that by banning the cigarette, cinema loses a little of its established aesthetic, too.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com