Cigarettes and Alcohol

As I watched the presentations on Tuesday I was struck by how unfamiliar I am now with cigarette ads - I hardly ever see them anymore! I guess the picketers did a good job at putting the damper down on their use of advertisements. Alden said in her blog that the presentations were sexy (interestingly, that is a popular word architects use now to describe buildings - go figure), and I wanted to expound on that, based on the conversation we had last week about the things we're comfortable talking about, and what we're not.

To the average American child growing up and watching however many hours of television they watch per day (I want to say it's three or four per day, is that right?) we're sending a hopelessly confused message. Not to mention billboards and the radio, of course. If children don't talk about the mixed messages, we're in trouble as a country when those kids grow up. One television show portrays sexy characters with cigarettes, a commercial between show segments displays Barbies and Kens enjoying a Bud together, then a public service announcement comes on warning against the dangers of smoking. In the car another ad comes on announcing the dangers of drinking. In some cases ads go so far as to imply that sex is a dirty thing, and alcohol is inherently evil because they're so intimately connected with each other. Where is the middle ground? And where do people have the right to choose to do something that's bad for them, if they want to? At the same time that cigarette and alcohol ads appeal to the inner sex drive that is within us all, the anti-cigarette and alcohol ads appeal to our conscience. It seems that the conscience, which is usually appealed to through logic in these commercials, isn't as strong as the sex drive. At least not for people our age. And so alcohol, because we're given no middle ground, has become something that is either used in excess or not used at all. I take the second option because I saw too many terrible things around me happen as a result of alcohol when I was young to ever want to touch it when I became old enough. If I drink at all, it's half a glass at most - I have perhaps an unhealthy fear of alcohol.

Americans drink to become drunk; people don't go to bars to have a drink. That's just not how we do it. Also, we tend to drink at night. In Italy people drink all the time - a glass of wine at lunch, maybe a few glasses at dinner, followed with a digestivo (alcohol so strong we nicknamed it "paint thinner") to help settle the stomach after a large meal. In Italy it's embarrassing to become drunk - but everyone still drinks. It's fascinating to me how much the Italians all seem to follow this rule, but in America there's a hard line between whether you drink or whether you don't drink - and a lot of dispute between the two sides. I'd be interested to hear what people in the class think who do drink, whether they think this is an American thing or not, and why.