Revisionist History - BT is still lying to you
Paul Smith
a result of simple economics.
LETTER: Film not loyal to truth [Item not online]
by Chris Sharp Santa Clarita, via e-mail;
Source: Santa Clarita (CA) Signal, 2002-02-14
Editor:
The other day my daughter and I took in the film "A Beautiful
Mind" at a local theater. By and large it was a brilliant film, thanks
largely to Russell Crowe's great performance as the extraordinary
mathematician John Nash. However, after reading Sylvia Nasar' s
award-winning biography of Nash, I was very disappointed to see
him depicted in the film as a cigarette smoker, particularly in his
recovery process from his first attack of schizophrenia.
In fact, Nasar makes it clear in her book that tobacco was
clearly a life-long Nash annoyance. Nash is depicted in the book reacting
violently to cigarette smoke throughout his life, ranging from
biting a fellow graduate student who brought second-hand smoke
into Nash's room to creating a public scene with his bride over her
youthful smoking. In a life that has been rich with changes,
Nasar's book makes clear that her subject's hatred of cigarettes
has remained a constant.
Why then has Hollywood made this Nobel laureate a cigarette
champion by example in this movie? Or why is there so much smoking by so
many role modes in today's movies? Is it because the tobacco
industry has enormous money to enable movie production to be paid
for more quickly in exchange for a few key smoking scenes? Truly
the Marlboro Man is dead of lung cancer, but there are clearly
plenty of other heroes to stick out there with cigarettes in
their lips for a new generation of smokers.
It is a real shame that this kind of shilling has been stuck now
on the image of John Nash, who is in his mid-seventies and who has
battled mental illness most of his life. He was probably
misrepresented in this way because Hollywood dismissed his own
life's value system as being unenforceable toward influencing
this film. In any case, I had a conversation with my daughter
afterward explaining that no matter how many brilliant or courageous people
are shown smoking in movies today, this is one of the subtle and
insidious ways that a new generation of young smokers is told it
is "Kool to smoke."
-- Happy Hunting!! -- Paul
Houston, TX, USA
ICQ #73314929
Researching: VA - WHITE,LIPSCOMB,HILL,JOHNSON,SAUNDERS,
TALBOT,TATE,EVANS
NC - SMITH, BOSWELL, RHODES, CAPEHART,MORRIS,
MARSHE, BRITT,SHAW
View my American Ancestry at:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~paulrsmith
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-- Happy Hunting!! -- Paul
Houston, TX, USA
ICQ #73314929
Researching: VA - WHITE,LIPSCOMB,HILL,JOHNSON,SAUNDERS,
TALBOT,TATE,EVANS
NC - SMITH, BOSWELL, RHODES, CAPEHART,MORRIS,
MARSHE, BRITT,SHAW
View my American Ancestry at:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~paulrsmith
****************
FREE Credit Card Referral Program. Quick money
AND residual, lifetime income! CHECK IT OUT !!
http://smithecomservices.tripod.com
***************************************