French lawmakers have taken steps to adjust France’s rigid anti-smoking laws, citing concerns about endangering the country’s “cultural heritage.” The so-called “Evin” law prohibits any “direct or indirect” promotion of tobacco or tobacco products.
Fear over falling onto the wrong side of the law meant pictures of iconic French figures like Jean-Paul Sartre were altered to remove cigarettes on posters and book covers.
The bill brought before parliament equated this with “the falsification of history, the censorship of works of the mind, [and] the denial of reality,” which it insisted “must remain the heinous marks of totalitarian regimes.”
There’s no denying that limiting cigarette advertisement and sponsorship is a good idea, but censoring photographs of famous figures is a step too far.
It’s simply a reality that some of history’s famous figures have been smokers. By creating a “safe” version of a famous photograph, one draws attention to whatever one is trying to hide—an enterprise doomed to failure in the age of the Internet.
Instead of trying to hide a dirty secret about a famous figure, the public should be prepared to acknowledge the truth about how he or she lived.
In the case of something as common as a cigarette, the adage “out of sight, out of mind” simply doesn’t hold up. As long as cigarettes are still available to the public, the most responsible course of action is to acknowledge that they remain a public health risk, and one that was once almost ubiquitous.
It’s true that photographs of famous figures smoking adds to the glamour of cigarettes as a product, but these photographs are significantly less harmful than advertising, which targets individuals with demographic-relevant material and images of smoking that are deliberately enticing. Many individuals and businesses in France have been largely resistant to public smoking bans applied to restaurants and bars.
Aggressively targeting those businesses caught out of line would likely be more effective than worrying about hiding cigarettes in old photos.
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