Prologue: America and Cigarettes Well meet you on some corner.

Ill be the man smoking two cigarettes (Fitzgerald). This quote comes to us from the acclaimed American classic The Great Gatsby, written by the famous F. Scott Fitzgerald. Taking place in the roaring 20s, The Great Gatsby tells the stories of various characters experiencing the falsehoods of glitzy upperclass society. The book is filled with characters participating in a sort of opulent utopia; the world they live in is magnificent, but not one that everyday people can inhabit. Even the man who created this world found he could not live in permanently. Fitzgerald tried earnestly his entire life to display this aristocratic easiness about him, and held on to that facade until his early death in 1940 due to a massive heart attack. F. Scott Fitzgerald was not alone in his path of demise due to superficial substance, fellow symbol Marilyn Monroe died early, perhaps on her own will. Known as an icon in both the entertainment and political arenas, in many ways Monroe symbolized the sexy, empowered side of women in the 50s and 60s. Both of these individuals represented their respective generations, despite developing an almost Janusian paradox of both glamor and tragedy. It always struck me as odd then, that cigarette companies tend to base much of their advertising campaigns from this class of figures. It seems if it isnt cowboys, cigarette ads tend to revert to this attractive image of classic, 1920s era upperclass individuals enjoying a smoke. These people are dazzling, smart, educated, and rich, and smoking is a part of them. These people do not exist. I think as consumers, the American people have matured to a point that they realize this image they are being sold could never happen to them; weve even seen the catastrophes inherent when people do attempt to live these extravagant lifestyles. Its telling that even while modern viewers

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realize that these companies are selling the personas of these tragic figures, the marketing still is effective. In a way though, this approach to advertising parallels the plight of modern smokers quite closely. Much like the tragedies the commercials emulate (but so careful avoid alluding to), smokers today realize they regularly participate in a detrimental habit; they realize that many of the more upstanding members of society may frown on their behaviors, but still they press on. Smoking, despite how it may be presented, is no longer exclusive to the sophisticated upper class individual, but now belongs to the middle and lower classes who still believe they can progress to that level of wellbeing. Theres still an element of glamor in the act of smoking cigarettes because that is what smokers want, a last vestige of bygone eras in which smoking was accepted. This glorification of upperclass lifestyle is the same reason the rugged outlaw can be still be considered a hero even in modern audiences, and that the outlaws fingers grace the butt of a lit cigarette. Despite the very obvious negative effects, to some people, smoking is still cool. Quite evidently, this opinion is not universal throughout society. In fact, the number who share this opinion have been rapidly diminishing throughout the last fifty years. In that time, weve seen restrictions and outright bans on smoking in the majority of public spaces, and a huge decline in the smoking rate. Though no one could argue that preventing smoking is a noble cause, this new era of rules and regulations present the preexisting smoker with a unique and novel set of dilemmas. One demographic that both smoking and nonsmoking advocates heavily cater to is that of college students, as it is during these critical years most smokers develop. In this episode of This Belmont Life, we attempt to target the effects of these newly arisen problems on current smokers both in society as a whole and within the collegiate community of Belmont

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University. In Act One, we look at the story of a smoker who faces adversity. In Act Two, we take an academic perspective in studying the role of this smoker in society, and in Act Three, we talk to the smokers themselves to try to deduce to exact state of the smoker. On one last note, before we begin, F. Scott Fitzgerald left us with another important quotation to help expand readers knowledge on the paramount role smoking played in the culture of early 1920s. He claims that smoking had come to be an important punctuation mark in the long sentences of a day on the road (Fitzgerald). According to Fitzgerald, smoking served as a divider, a stress-free break between two portions of his day. While we cannot use a cigarette as a divider between segments in the show, a song can fulfill this need for us. This is Three Cigarettes in an Ashtray, a 1957 cut by famed Nashville singer Patsy Cline that represents both the glamor and the tragedy of smoking cigarettes. Enjoy, and stay with us.

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Works Cited Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1925.