Cigarettes will kill you, but cigarette ads kill me!
In researching vintage cigarette ads, I've come to find that my favorites are all print ads of the late 1960s through the early 1980s, prior to legislation that severely limited how cigarettes and alcohol could be advertised in print and on television.
As opposed to the ads of the 1940s (patriotic Camel ads, for instance) or 1950s (Kools, Chesterfields, Lucky Strikes), these later ads don't point to lower amounts of nicotine or a better filter as a way to promote "healthier" smoking. Instead, it seems that by the late 1960s, tobacco companies like Muriel and Benson & Hedges had long given up on trying to promote a healthy cigarette, and instead embraced humor and sexuality as the primary vehicles for shilling smokes.
As opposed to the ads of the 1940s (patriotic Camel ads, for instance) or 1950s (Kools, Chesterfields, Lucky Strikes), these later ads don't point to lower amounts of nicotine or a better filter as a way to promote "healthier" smoking. Instead, it seems that by the late 1960s, tobacco companies like Muriel and Benson & Hedges had long given up on trying to promote a healthy cigarette, and instead embraced humor and sexuality as the primary vehicles for shilling smokes.
These are a few of my favorites.
I'm fairly sure they're not talking about smoke here. Either way, I don't think it's a true statement. But boy is it cheeky.
See, it's like he didn't even know he was smoking! It was so casual and cool that he just answered the phone without realizing that he still had the cigarette in his mouth! Plus, it's a 100, which is, like, a super-long cigarette and this man is African-American. Sexuality, subtle racism, a kooky facial expression, it's all here! Craaaazy!
Wait a minute. If she's going to try to study, but philosophy is all "Greek" to him, what can he possibly be interested in? What a scallywag.
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