MovieChat Forums > Center Stage (2000) Discussion > smoking

smoking

posted 11 years ago by tallard
8 replies | jump to latest

Watching Joe light-up and smoke in her dorm room was plenty ridiculous enough, but then they all go to someone else's dorm room "smoke room" ??????
One of the most ridiculous movie openings I've ever seen. It's bad enough to smoke inside one's own home, but to so brazenly display smoking in dorm rooms was beyond insulting. This is not the 50s! Any body who still smokes indoors anywhere else than their own private home have below human decency. argh.

***So I've seen 4 movies/wk in theatre for a 1/4 century, call me crazy?**

[–] lizmarie1124 11 years ago

This movie was in 2000 not 2008. I lived in the dorms in 2000 and it was a smoking dorm and I smoked in my room. Looking back, I know how disgusting that was to smoke in such a small confined space. But at 18, I didn't care where I smoked. I smoked everywhere. Times have definitely changed and smoking indoors is considered very taboo in 2013 but this movie was filmed 13 years ago.

What are you doing here? Five words or less.
Out. For. A. Walk...b!tch.

[–] tallard 11 years ago

I started university, living in a dorm with either single or double rooms, in 1985, in Quebec, a very historically smoky French province, 1985, and there was no smoking in dorms. The rest of Canada had non smoking public places well before Quebec did. I can't conceive that any decent school was still allowing any smoking in its building even by the 90s. But then of course, there are plenty of not decent schools. sorry.

***So I've seen 4 movies/wk in theatre for a 1/4 century, call me crazy?**

[–] lizmarie1124 11 years ago

A lot of universities in the states allowed this but I can't imagine you could find one now. The university I went to was a decent school. I agree that it is a gross habit that should not be allowed in the dorms and is no longer. The only purpose of my response was to tell that it was not as unrealistic as you thought it was the movie - not to defend the action.

What are you doing here? Five words or less.
Out. For. A. Walk...b!tch.

[–] raecheer 10 years ago

I can't conceive that any decent school was still allowing any smoking in its building even by the 90s.

Did you ignore when Maureen told Eva that there was no smoking in the rooms? She was headed outside when Eric told her that it was Marlboro country in his room.

Not everybody is uptight about smoking where they care about whether someone smokes inside or not. And considering this was a movie about aspiring ballerinas, a job that pretty much mandates that girls be as small as possible - a lot probably smoke. Cigarettes are a huge appetite suppressant.

[–] siobanphotogirl 11 years ago

Who is Joe?

Maybe you're thinking of Jody but I'm pretty sure she never smoked. Her roommate Eva smoked--or was she knitting a sweater?!

[–] zziiyy 11 years ago

If you're under the age of 30, please don't try to understand the politics of smoking. You just won't get it. The fact that you reference the 50s when talking about a time when lots of people smoked indicates you weren't even a zygote in the 70s and maybe even early 80s. Plus, you've been brainwashed to think that anyone who even dares to smoke a cigarette will die of lung cancer. Even though millions and millions of people have smoked, and they have not died from it.

The point in this case, was to illustrate that ballet dancers smoke a lot to avoid eating food and to keep up their energy. Not to distress your non-smoking, millenial sensibilities.

[–] tallard 11 years ago

Well, how pleasant to have someone underestimate my age by 20 years. A lady always likes that. You use 1950 to estimate my age at 30... something is seriously askew with your math there.

And no, it was not a trend in the 80s for all ballet dancers to smoke, you might want to get your history straight before assuming millennial sensibilities in others... and do the millennial crowd even have sensibilities? Their Nintendo thumbs are still green!

Both my parents chain-smoked (literally) 3 packs of king-sized each, per day. And when I say chain-smoked, I specify they barely made use of matches or lighters, they just lit up on the previous one. Addiction is a sad sad sight. Lucky for them, by their 50s, they'd both almost quit, though like alcohol addiction, you're never really in the clear, just riding that wagon. Both their lungs show vast improvements over their smoking days. But my mom was left with lung scarring, which occasionally causes problems. Anyone with any grade of extended family has seen loved-ones waste away with emphysema, hooked up to air tanks. That sight has become much rarer today.

Evidenced-based science of the lethality and increased medical costs of nicotine consumption where settled by the 50s and the USA Surgeon General officially declared nicotine smoking non-grata in 64 http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/sgr/history/. Anyone with any scientific understanding knows this.

You might consider FACTS before ranting at people.

***So I've seen 4 movies/wk in theatre for a 1/4 century, call me crazy?**

[–] liscarkat (16697) 4 months ago

I was a ballet dancer in the 1970s, so this movie depicts a couple of decades after my time. However, when I was in that world, about twenty-five percent of dancers smoked (more of the women than men), and they did it whenever and wherever they wanted to, including residences, rehearsal/class studios, theater dressing rooms, and backstage.