So has anyone heard the radio promos for the new film
Chappaquiddick, about Ted Kennedy and the curious case of Mary Jo Kopechne, set for theatrical release in a couple weeks? The ads warn audiences the film contains "strong language, graphic imagery and...
historical smoking". I'm sorry, is this really a thing? Are cigarettes so terrible and shocking that people have to be warned beforehand that they might see folks enjoy a smoke? "Historical" smoking? Okay, yeah, in those bygone halcyon days you could light up in an office or a police station or, hey, even in your own living room without someone wanting to pillory you, but, c'mon. Historical? Every other old detective show on late-night cable TV show has the gumshoe, first thing, either offer the client a cigarette or having one himself. Columbo would look positively naked without a cigar in his mouth. Mannix, Bannacek, Peter Gunn, Perry Mason-- all of them smoked, I think. I never heard anyone make much of that fact before. A filthy habit, to be sure, but
historical? In the words of my hero
Mad Max,
"My big ol' butt!" Like it's really going to advance the story to see all the President's men puffing away in the danger room. I think someone lost sight of the point, which is the premise of the narrative: Teddy's handlers trying to spin away the fact that Jack and Bobby's drunken lout of a brother just drowned a girl in his car. Smoking?
Historical? Please! I never heard anyone confuse
Ironside with a documentary about disability advocacy in the workplace, or
I Love Lucy for a show about the plight of Cuban immigrants who marry whiny show-crashing redheads for green-card immunity. What next, a content warning about "historical drinking" for any film where alcohol is consumed? Pray they don't do a bio-pic about Ulysses S. Grant-- he was reputed to drink so much they could've floated the Monitor and the Merrimack on a sea of his swollen liver.