smoking for bad guys

[Happy birthday, Mom!]

I thought this was an interesting finding. The study by lung specialists in New Jersey found that movies overwhelmingly tend to portray baddies as smokers or, conversely, smokers as baddies.

So the annual millions [I'm just guessing] spent on making smoking glamorous to up-and-coming potential tobacco consumers (i.e. teens) are finally being countered by pop culture -- that is, as long as the baddies aren't being played by their favorite movie stars.

If the bad guy (or the actor) is disliked by the audience, his/her smoking would tend to be associated with a negative feeling. On the other hand, it could backfire.

Said the chief researcher, "it might be cool to be bad."

Oh yeah, we forgot about that ... damn, we're getting old.