Smoking Stranger Things

Sometimes, when you reach a broader audience, you get more interesting complaints.  Stranger Things is garnering a massive audience for Netflix, perhaps the biggest they've ever had.  With the launch of Season 3 of Stranger Things, it has proven to be bigger than ever.

With all those eyes on the show, some of whom don't watch many other basic cable or streaming shows, it was noticed by some the incredible amount of smoking on the show.  This is in sharp contrast to many network shows where smoking has all but disappeared.

Why is there so much smoking in this show?

The excuse has been given that it was set in the 1980s, and that was long ago when people didn't know better.

I call bull hockey.

The 80s is an excuse, not the reason.

The Surgeon General report about the dangers of smoking came out in 1962.  People had plenty of notice that this was bad.

Were there more smokers than there are now?  Yes, but the percentage of smokers was already declining.  Was it still socially acceptable in public places?  Probably in Hawkins, Indiana.  I would think some would have begun to question it, but maybe not.  I'll give them that one.

It has been amusing on social media to hear younger people describe the 80s as ancient times.  You know, before radio and TV.

I lived through the 80s (old, I am).  Smoking existed, but it was declining.  NOT EVERYBODY SMOKED. 

I don't think it has to do with the 80s, or even other programs set earlier.  I see a higher level of smoking in all basic cable and streaming shows, even those set in current times.

I think it's just lazy writing and complicit actors.

Smoking is used as a way to communicate character and hell, just to give a fidgety actor some stage business.  The character in the picture that tops this post is "bad and edgy."  What better way (actually the lazy, cheap way) to communicate that than by making him a smoker? 

I'm not entirely sure why, but I feel like a larger percentage of actors are smokers, which is weird given their education and backgrounds.  I guess they have a lot of downtime between takes and it's something to do.  Maybe it's a general culture they fall into. Perhaps they think it's cool.  I'm not really sure.  But when they get told their character smokes, it's like a natural thing.

My second community theatre play, and my first lead,  way back when I was 25 or so, was in Send Me No Flowers, a play about a hypochondriac who fears he's sick with different things (it was made into a movie with Rock Hudson and Doris Day).  Inexplicably, the character had smoking scenes in the play, probably because it was written just before the Surgeon General's warning.

As an actor, this made no sense to me, presented before a modern audience, that this character, who was terrified of the effects of butter and margarine, and fussed about all kinds of things, would be a smoker.  The director, however, was a smoker and was SUPER DELIGHTED that she could make me, a non-smoker, smoke onstage.

I thought it was the wrong thing to do.  But you know me.  What the Director wants, I try to give.  Eventually, smoking scenes were cut back to one.  I won most of the battle, but not all.

The year?  1980.

Do I wish smoking could be eliminated from movies and TV?  Yeah, I probably do.  Can it be eliminated?  Probably not.  There are time periods and situations where it makes sense.

But for the most part?  I see lazy writing and complicit actors.

Sorry about that, but I do.

ALSO:

Some noted the lack of seat belt use.  Technically, the show was set in 1985, and Indiana did not have a mandatory seat belt law until 1987. 

Again, having lived through the 80s, I do see this as a mere technicality.  Many people were using seat belts before that.  Georgia adopted a law a year later, 1988, but my family and I used seat belts regularly throughout the entire decade.  In fact, my chief car in the 80s was a Volkswagen Diesel Rabbit, that WOULD NOT START unless the seat belts were fastened.

Again, it's done more as a reflection of the writers and actors than it is of time period accuracy.  It's easier to show movement and character if the actors are not "strapped in." 

Ever notice in driving scenes how often the driver looks over at the passenger to talk about something, and they are NOT LOOKING AT THE ROAD?  That's because the creative people involved want to see the characters react to each other, and hope you don't think about how effing distracted the driver is.

I gotta prepare for work.  Non-political soapbox over and out.