Solutions Abound
I've been hearing a lot about how they're going to change the movie ratings system so that movies with "excessive smoking" will get a higher rating like movies with people getting disemboweled do. At first, this struck me as a bit silly. I mean, sure, I'm as anti-smoking as the next guy (unless that guy is a smoker...then it just doesn't work), but...well...it seemed like maybe they're a bit...I dunno...crazy about it. However, after having a few days to mull it over, I came up with a better solution, and it's all thanks to Steven Spielberg.
For those of you who just didn't care, when they re-released E.T. a couple years ago, they digitally editted some scenes. In some cases, it was to make E.T. seem more realistic, like a bathtub scene where the pores on the rubber puppet were releasing bubbles. However, the scene that made the biggest splash as far as the news was concerned was the chase scene where the Federal agents were trying to catch E.T. and E.T. makes Elliot and his friends fly to get away. In the original, the agents all had guns. Spielberg thought, as he was preparing the new version, that it seemed unrealistic and excessive to have all these grown men with guns trying to stop a few kids.
Apparently, Spielberg doesn't think that they might want the guns for the alien who can make kids fly.
Anyway, since he didn't like the idea, he got rid of them and gave the agents hand-held radios. A little wussy, but a good solution. And that got me thinking. Instead of changing the ratings, we can just take out the cigarettes and replace them, too. At first, I thought it would be a simple matter of replacing all the cigarettes with these:
And that seemed like a good idea, at first....but then I thought about it. Sometimes a sucker isn't appropriate. For one thing, they aren't very manly. Can you imagine Humphrey Bogart sucking on a lollipop in The Maltese Falcon? Sure, Bogey would certainly lend a bit of toughness to it, but not everyone could pull it off. Jean-Claude Van Damme certainly wouldn't.
Does he ever smoke in movies? ...What am I saying, he's French...of course he does.
Actually, that raises a lot of questions about the tough image associated with smoking, but I digress.
So I began to think of alternatives. A couple sprang to mind:
Now, I have to admit, they still lack that je ne sais quoi that's necessary to convey the Bogey image, but for most actors, it'll do. Plus, it sends a healthy message to the kids about eating their veggies. But, it would be irresponsible of me to have left it at that, since Bogart was my example and I had yet to find a cigarette replacement for him.
Then it hit me.
Only one substance could possibly match that no-nonsense attitude and overall manliness that Humphrey Bogart exuded.
For those of you who just didn't care, when they re-released E.T. a couple years ago, they digitally editted some scenes. In some cases, it was to make E.T. seem more realistic, like a bathtub scene where the pores on the rubber puppet were releasing bubbles. However, the scene that made the biggest splash as far as the news was concerned was the chase scene where the Federal agents were trying to catch E.T. and E.T. makes Elliot and his friends fly to get away. In the original, the agents all had guns. Spielberg thought, as he was preparing the new version, that it seemed unrealistic and excessive to have all these grown men with guns trying to stop a few kids.
Apparently, Spielberg doesn't think that they might want the guns for the alien who can make kids fly.
Anyway, since he didn't like the idea, he got rid of them and gave the agents hand-held radios. A little wussy, but a good solution. And that got me thinking. Instead of changing the ratings, we can just take out the cigarettes and replace them, too. At first, I thought it would be a simple matter of replacing all the cigarettes with these:
And that seemed like a good idea, at first....but then I thought about it. Sometimes a sucker isn't appropriate. For one thing, they aren't very manly. Can you imagine Humphrey Bogart sucking on a lollipop in The Maltese Falcon? Sure, Bogey would certainly lend a bit of toughness to it, but not everyone could pull it off. Jean-Claude Van Damme certainly wouldn't.
Does he ever smoke in movies? ...What am I saying, he's French...of course he does.
Actually, that raises a lot of questions about the tough image associated with smoking, but I digress.
So I began to think of alternatives. A couple sprang to mind:
Now, I have to admit, they still lack that je ne sais quoi that's necessary to convey the Bogey image, but for most actors, it'll do. Plus, it sends a healthy message to the kids about eating their veggies. But, it would be irresponsible of me to have left it at that, since Bogart was my example and I had yet to find a cigarette replacement for him.
Then it hit me.
Only one substance could possibly match that no-nonsense attitude and overall manliness that Humphrey Bogart exuded.
posted by Noise Monkey at 10:14 AM
1 Comments:
While not as good for his health as the carrots, I'm thinking that the barbed wire might still be better than smoking in the long run.
After all, it's not the sort of habit one would be likely to keep up for years on end.
(Better on the wallet, too - you wouldn't go through pieces of barbed wire at "a pack a day" type rates.)
JuggLer
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