Some movies have the habit of holding a moral stating something is bad when in actuality what is being portrayed on the screen seems pretty cool. Movies will tell you “war is hell” but show people having a good time in the comrade environment of war. Other movies will state “doing this will kill you” but whatever “this” is, looks like a blast. For instance, “alcohol is bad” all the while making alcohol look like fun. This reverse psychology mindset audiences have make this trope rather timeless, although when movies show smoking cigarettes as okay but smoking pot as bad, then it comes across as this as well as horribly dated (you won’t find that come across in a modern movie as today we all know what smoking cigarettes leads to).
The most obvious example of this trope is Reefer Madness (1936). The whole movie is about how bad marijuana is, but scientific facts aside the movie royally screws up on something: all the kids that don’t smoke pot are incredibly lame making the pot-smokers look cool in comparison. Our white and nerdy protagonist dresses like a kid that gets shoved in a locker and recites Romeo and Juliet with his ultra white somewhat girlfriend (you know since they’re too innocent to go steady). Meanwhile, our pot-smoking villains have parties and no strings attached sex. The movie is aimed at a teenage audience and guess which one out of these two lifestyles teens would rather live? This is made even funnier that the nerdy girl (played by Dorothy Short) married the main pot-smoking character (played by Dave O’Brien) in real life. So, play a bad guy and the girl would rather hook-up with you. Basically, throughout the movie you want the boring main characters to smoke pot just so they will become more interesting. Does that sound like a sound message for a message film to you?
Francois Truffaut famously stated that there is no such thing as an anti-war film since all war films end up appealing to youthful viewers no matter what their intentions are. Every once in a while, a war movie will come out and be seen as so disturbing and shocking critics think Truffaut was finally proven wrong, but as it turns out that “anti-war” film ended up getting people to enlist in the military against the film’s message. This is what happened with Platoon (1986) which is a movie filled with death and destruction leading Roger Ebert to believe Truffaut was wrong, alas he was not and people started joining the military due to watching the film. Interestingly enough, veteran Samuel Fuller’s The Big Red One (1980) is a big anti-war movie and generals complained that nobody would want to join the army after seeing it. Apparently, according to Fuller, it didn’t lead to high recruitment from civilians after watching it. The Big Red One’s star Lee Marvin must have been proud since he was dissatisfied many of his films had too much of a positive outlook on war even though they often portrayed the death and violence that comes with it.
Still, perhaps the most blatant of genre to play up to this trope is the gangster film. The message to almost all gangster films is that “crime does not pay” even though the gangsters in the movies end up getting what they want. They get cool apartments, lots of money, and all the girls they want. Many gangster films attempt to have a foil for the gangster character whether it is a hardworking best friend or an honest brother, but they are never as cool or as interesting as the gangster leads. Marlon Brando initially turned down The Godfather (1972) for this very reason as he believed it glorified mob life (which it does and made people turn to crime after watching it inspiring a whole new generation of mobsters).
Today when I watch an older film with a friend or relative, they have to point out all the smoking. I’ve become numb to looking at it as I don’t notice it anymore after watching so many classic films. We must always get the lecture of how bad smoking is which we all know since it has been told to us numerous times. Yes smoking is bad and as someone who watches nothing but old movies I have never smoked a cigarette in my life (and I have no desire to), but damn it if Charles Boyer doesn’t look cool as hell doing it.
~Virginia
The Tinseltown Twins 
One thought on “Movie Trope Thursday: Do Not Do This Cool Thing”