How come most of the Bond girls didn't smoke in the old days?
ironpony
Posts: 57MI6 Agent
Basically when you watch the older entries, a lot of them didn't accept for ones in FRWL, TB, OP, and TSWLM, and DAF, but that's not most of them really, which I find strange, for a time when it was much more common.
Did the filmmakers or Fleming usually not like Bond girls smoking perhaps?
Did the filmmakers or Fleming usually not like Bond girls smoking perhaps?
Comments
Roger Moore 1927-2017
then there is a full chapter where she shares her fantasies about her "Hero", the sailor on the Players cigarette package.
I could understand of not wanting the feeling of licking an ashtray, but given how much Bond smokes in fiction and Fleming smokes in real life, how could either of them have tasted anything when they kissed a girl?
The nicotine stained teeth would probably be part of the attraction!
btw I never knew what sailor she was talking about when I read that chapter before. I realise I was always imagining a slightly different cigarette related character.
the Players man does look much more respectable. That completely changes my understanding of that chapter!
As for the early Bond movies, didn’t the villainesses smoke, like Helga Brandt, Fiona Volpe and Rosa Klebb? Perhaps it’s characterization in which smoking was the privilege of men and bad girls? Didn’t some Bond girls smoke, like Tiffany Case and any of the Piz Gloria allergy patients? Sorry, short of rewatching, I’m drawing from memory.
Stop it! My name is Superado and I’m a smoker. It’s been three days since my last cigarette...and I just finished a rather large meal!
Now remember, Moneypenny, cancel my appointments this afternoon.
Yes, Ma'am, but 007 will be here soon.
Crap- here, hide this quick! I want to read him his latest health report.
Fiona:
I couldn't find a pic of Rosa smoking, but no problem finding Lotte Lenya doing so:
Thanks, Barbel. In those times, I think non-smokers among actressess were more the exception. IMO, smoking would have looked natural for Rosa Klebb in that scene in which she interviews Tatania, just as Helga Brandt would have been fittingly cool and sinister with a ciggie in hand in that scene in which Bond is tied up...despite her ideals of a healthy chest!
One of the patients at Piz Gloria did, but Tracy didn't, for a main Bond girl.
This may stem from the earlier periods where a cigarette was seen as phallic, and it was vulgar for a women to have one. That's one reason why flappers in the 1920 took to cigarettes as an expression of their freedom, sexual and otherwise.
For man, using a cigarette was masculine. My father said he started mostly because that's what all the tough guys did in the movies. But women were meant to be feminine and delicate. The exceptions were "crazy" women (and cigarettes are associated with mental illness), "loose" women, women under stress, and those with values outside the mainstream. No, this is not an absolute by any means. But in mainstream American culture, it was quite common in the 1950s and 1960s.
https://owlcation.com/humanities/Cigarettes-and-Suffragettes
But the fact that it's less in James Bond seems strange, especially since the women character seem non-delicate, such as Honey Rider, Pussy Galore, Tracy, etc.
So take from that what you will.
I don't buy this revisionist talk where classic Hollywood actresses didn't smoke.
For example, if you wanna be Bogie's dame you don't just smoke, you gotta look hella-cool while youre doing it
Lucille Ball
Mary Tyler Moore
Elizabeth Montgomery
Doris Day
Jackie Kennedy
Mia Farrow
Debbie Reynolds
Suzanne Pleshette
Barbara Bain
I suppose you should also look to the directors sensibilities on the matter, in the UK women smoking in the 50s and 60s was more frowned upon than in the US but everyone associated continental Europeans with smoking, particularly the French, it's almost a stereotype French men wear berets and French women smoke..... Usually with a cigarette holder.
I think Lauren Bacall would have been a seriously fantastic Bond villain. I can easily picture her in the same vein as Fiona Volpe or Helga Brandt.
No one is arguing that there weren't women who smoked. It just wasn't as common for them as the men. When women did smoke, it was usually as an expression of character -- deviance, sexual promiscuity, mental illness, etc. -- at least in the U.S. On some occasions, that wasn't the case, of course, but it was more common than not. If a woman smoked, there was a particular symbolic purpose. Deviance, by the way, could be expressed in usurping a man's power, in effect, becoming a man.
Of course, that began to change in the 1960s, as women became more empowered, entered the workforce in greater numbers, wore miniskirts and the like to express their independence.
This article deals with some of the concepts. Note when it brings up women and smoking, it's either in a sexual context or to show deviance/villainy:
https://www.nytimes.com/1992/11/08/movies/film-history-is-written-in-smoke.html
Men, on the other hand, were given a broader sweep, which is another reason it was more common. Sure, it could be sexual or deviant, but it was also a sign of good ol' American masculinity to have a cigarette. Thus, heroes or villains could just as easily light up. Interestingly, though, male villains often had a peculiarity to their smoking. They might, for instance, use a cigarette holder, which gave them a more fey quality in the eyes of American audiences (even if FDR did much the same as a sign of his affluence).
http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/9/1/3
Even this Wikipedia entry notes the social restrictions on women regarding cigarettes and that even by 1965, only a third of U.S. women indulged, and it wasn't until 1968 that an actual brand aimed exclusively at women was created:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_and_smoking#1920s%E2%80%931940s
So, women did use cigarettes, but it was still considered socially questionable vis a vis men, which would explain why women don't seem to use cigarettes as much in the movies as their male counterparts, and if they did, for specific reasons.
You know what they say how the quality of an argument degrades once Hitler/Nazism is brought up, or when someone throws in the race card! 8-) If I attempted to tip the argument by rigging my examples, I should not have found that many.
Your above statement is not true, because based on everything else you said, your argument isn’t just about frequency and proportions between men and women who smoked on screen. By going with your pretty sweeping statements and generalizations, the photos I posted show they are not true. Sexual deviancy, villainy for dramatic effect? Because of the abandonment of the old Hays Code for movies, most of the examples I used were specifically from television, the content of which was held to a more stringent moral standard imposed by product sponsors, yet there were instances for the female leads of TV shows lighting up and not necessarily for dramatic effect or anything linked to villainy or repressed yearnings for male genitalia…that’s just ridiculous. If you want to make such statements, you should really back it up with something more than anecdotal stories or online articles that you could just have easily handpicked from the many other Google results that do not support your argument.