Are the French Sophisticated Enough to Tolerate Images of Cigarettes?

Jacob Sullum | January 24, 2011

Last week a committee of the French National Assembly approved legislation that would loosen the country's ban on tobacco advertising to avoid absurdities like this, an ad for a 2009 retrospective on the films of Jacques Tati in which his comic character M. Hulot's trademark pipe has been replaced by a yellow pinwheel. The 1991 ban applies not only to tobacco ads but also to tobacco images in ads for other products. In addition to requiring the removal of Hulot's pipe, the law mandated the airbrushing of cigarettes from famous pictures of the writer André Malraux (featured on a 1996 commemorative stamp) and the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (included in promotional materials for a 2005 exhibit at the National Library of France). The proposed amendment makes an exception for "artistic or cultural works."

Charles Paul Freund discussed cigarette censorship in a 1991 Reason piece, and Jeff Winkler noted the expurgated film festival ad here in 2009.

Reason needs your support. Please donate today!

Try Reason's award-winning print edition today! Your first issue is FREE if you are not completely satisfied.

inDglass|1.24.11 @ 5:10PM|#

No amount of marketing could ever make me desire smoking a pipe.

He's not wearing a helmet! They need to photoshop one of those on him too. We wouldn't want people to subliminally learn that it's ok to ride a bike wearing a hat instead of a helmet. That advertisement is unsafe!

Magritte|1.24.11 @ 3:45PM|#

Ceci n'est pas une pipe! Ne m'arrêtez pas!

Almanian|1.24.11 @ 3:48PM|#

C'est Mohammed?

jtuf|1.24.11 @ 5:38PM|#

My thoughts exactly.

Jeffersonian|1.24.11 @ 3:46PM|#

In olden days they put bloomers on piano legs. We've come so far, have we not?

|1.24.11 @ 3:47PM|#

Never mind the pipe/pinwheel - that creep has a child on his bicycle!

Rather|1.24.11 @ 3:54PM|#

OMG, ban pinwheels

The Other Kevin|1.24.11 @ 4:22PM|#

Is that child in an approved safety seat, wearing an approved helmet? Add the secondhand smoke, and we are talking some SERIOUS child abuse.

Almanian|1.24.11 @ 3:56PM|#

The important thing is that this could be the opening that gets tobacco money back into motorsports. If that happens, then this is a good thing.

Old Mexican|1.24.11 @ 4:21PM|#

"Sophisticated"? You're being too kind. The French are not sophisticated, they're pedantic, and no, it is not the same thing.

Rather|1.24.11 @ 4:47PM|#

Hmm, we call it savoir-vivre

Old Mexican|1.24.11 @ 5:14PM|#

Re: Rather,

"Head in Sand" award!

Rich|1.24.11 @ 4:30PM|#

What would the French put in place of Jackson Pollock's cigarette and (Pep Boy) Manny's cigar? A liquor miniature and an exhaust muffler? At least when *we* censor tobacco we eliminate the offending item entirely.

** sniffs pompously **

Mr. FIFY|1.24.11 @ 8:27PM|#

The fucking Brits airbrushed Churchill's cigars from historic photos.

Fuck anti-smokers.

Rock Action |1.24.11 @ 4:32PM|#

That's actually great. The pinwheel feels right, somehow. I'd fully expect to see that in a French movie and I wouldn't find it out of place at all.

|1.24.11 @ 4:39PM|#

Perhaps gullible Americans think the French are sophisticated, I can assure you that in Europe that is not the general perception.

Bill Clinton|1.24.11 @ 5:01PM|#

If Americans can handle cigars, the french can live with cigarettes

Monica|1.24.11 @ 5:08PM|#

A cigarette is a tampon slim enough for virgins

|1.24.11 @ 5:32PM|#

I heard Cloontang's bringing the pipe back.

jester|1.24.11 @ 6:40PM|#

To really make it responsible, censors could have photoshopped him hands off the handlebars taking a hit from a bong made out of a Orangina can.

jester|1.24.11 @ 6:41PM|#

sorry 'bout the split infinitive grammar police.

|1.24.11 @ 10:39PM|#

WTH! They pried the Lucky Strikes
out of my cold dead lips.

http://articles.sfgate.com/199.....t-memorial

|1.24.11 @ 10:42PM|#

Oh dear. They keep putting a hairy taco on mine.

Reason.com