Katherine Hepburn, the epitome of the emancipated woman!
Ingrid Bergman, no star more beautiful and glamorous
Doris Day, no living human being was as wholesome. Day was part of the star system controlled by the dictates of the Studio owners. Most of her roles were specific to the image the studio wanted to present to the public and Day was slotted to be a 'wholesome' all American girl/woman, appearing in musicals and light-hearted comedies. Studios over time relaxed their influence and occasionally she was farmed out to studios where parts were given to her in dramatic roles. But even in the dramatic roles she portrayed, never, ever did she accept a role as a villain or anything approaching an unlikeable character. I expect Doris Day was a stable personality and relatively comfortable in her assigned roles and didn't believe it was a good idea to tamper with the reputation she had gained that possibly affected her potential for future earnings. Rock Hudson was often paired with Doris Day and it wasn't 'til after he died that the media published that this paragon of male virility and handsomeness was homosexual. Hudson's public image had been controlled by studios throughout his long career. It hasn't been until very recently that gays banded together and asserted their rights to be an individual. I'm convinced that professions in public places resist public pronouncements about sexual preference. Attitudes change slowly in societies--it isn't prudent to make announcements until the public is ready to hear and accept them. Societies excel at enforcing unwritten laws.
My first cigarette at the age of fourteen promised to make me free, stunningly attractive, the envy of anyone who came into contact with me. The advertisements were targeted at women and the message they conveyed was, “Picture you making the choice to be free. Conventional women don’t smoke…rebels and ‘liberated women’ are brave enough to defy society by lighting their cigarettes.
“Be sexy, be free, be glamorous”… in modern parlance, “Be Cool!”
The Marlboro man’s picture was plastered on billboards…he was a free spirit, rugged and manly ... he smoked the best brand and that choice had to influence him being super masculine. :-)
In retrospect, how anyone, myself included, managed to get beyond turning green, and upchucking until the nicotine habit became entrenched, boggles my mind.
Most girls my age started about that time and everyone, male and female, had fags dangling from their lips during my high school era especially at noon hour when good lunches were replaced with a cigarette and chips with gravy at the bar-type lunch counter located next door to the school. In winter the smoking was done at the foot of the stairs, in between bites of gravy-impregnated French fries.
None of my friends escaped lighting up.
The Marlboro woman in contrast to her male counterpart was chic, and used a cigarette holder. She lights up between WWI and WWII because society condemned female smoking. Feminism entered its early period with women lighting up in defiance of cultural norms.
The lettering on the package is commercial script portraying elegance. The words under the picture are, “Mild as May.” Double entendement meaning, feminist roles permit me to smoke and of course May is a woman’s name and to encourage reluctant women, the added message was May was mild, not threatening.
In 1902 a British cigarette manufacturer, Philip Morris, established a corporation in New York selling tobacco brands: Cambridge, Derby, and Marlboro - named after the street where its London factory was situated. In 1924, Philip Morris introduced Marlboro as a women's cigarette.
A 1927 Marlboro ad published in Vanity Fair Magazine targeted affluent society women with text describing her as, "Women quickly develop discerning taste. That is why Marlboros now ride in so many limousines, attend so many bridge parties, repose in so many hand bags."
Click here to read the Marlboro story. Click to watch Marlboro video
A more recent Marlboro ad, targeted at a younger generation.
The themes I see running through all the advertisements is in keeping with abstraction theory--"a potential place or state of being situated not in the present but in an imagined future with the promise to the consumer of things “you” will have, a lifestyle you can take part in.”(CK, Consumer Culture and the Manufacturing of Desire, p. 189) Present also are, implications of, “the product being sold will make the consumer unique, special, and highly individual. In other words, ads perform the very contradictory work of convincing many different consumers that a mass-produced product will make them unique and different from others. The concept is known as pseudoindividuality a false idea of individuality. Pseudoindividuality is the means by which consumer cultures sells a form of homogenization to consumers while proclaiming that it will produce individuality. Indeed a commodity is only successful when it is purchased by many people.” (Ibid, p.205)
I grew up in a house of women who were strong role models which played a role in my decision to smoke, but also present was a strong need to fit in with what the rest of my friends were doing. (Individual…nope…not at that age--that was a teen fantasy!)
All of the images presented depict, “social values and ideologues about the “good life.” (Ibid, p.189)
According to media scholar Stuart Even, has termed the commodity self, the idea that construct our identities, at least in part through our consumption and use of of commodities. I put my cigarettes in the same category as “clothing, music, cosmetic products, and cars among other things, are commodities which people use to present their identities to those around them. (Ibid, p.198)
Cigarette commodities fulfilled emotional needs. The paradox in my case, it would have been more rebellious to refuse not to join the crowd by lighting up. :-) I remember that period with great fondness--it was a fun time to be a teen.
