Cigarettes and Whimsy, and Wild, Wild . . . ?
I see that Benson & Hedges took out a full-page ad in The Times (Calendar, Aug. 25), offering 500 pairs of pajamas for the best explanations (in 50 words or less) of their recent notoriously inscrutable ad.
Evidently they were not satisfied with my explanation (View, Aug. 16). The ad shows five well-dressed young women at a dinner table with a middle-aged man. A young man wearing only his pajama bottoms stands just beyond them, smiling insouciantly. He is smoking. At least three of the women are smoking.
The older man is toasting the young man with a glass of red wine from one of four bottles on the table. In a second, smaller picture, the young man is standing behind one of the young women. His right hand is on her right shoulder. With her left hand she reaches up to touch his cheek. A fourth woman is now smoking.
Here’s my explanation: The setting is a bordello; the women are members of the establishment; the older man is a patron who is entertaining them on their day off; the young man is the custodian, the piano player or a pizza deliveryman. He has the status of a pet or mascot. (Only 46 words.)
Rhuba Boutin sends a page from People magazine explaining that the young man--model Rob Ramsel--was making a “post-coital cigarette ad” in the bedroom of the Manhattan apartment that was being used by the ad agency as a studio, and during a break just wandered onto the dining room set. The photographer kept shooting. The result: an incomprehensible ad.
A reader who asks to remain anonymous says that Advertising Age ran a contest for the best explanation. “The funniest was that the pajama-clad guy was dying of lung cancer and had gathered his friends together to say adieu.”
That explanation seems unlikely, since the obvious high spirits of the group rule out that morbid theme. But for its ambiguity Benson & Hedges deserves whatever interpretations people make.
Leigh Hess of Long Beach also recalls reading about the photograph’s accidental origin, and calls it “enigmatic serendipity.” Tom Hollamby of Oxnard agrees: “A quick-witted artistic director saw a potential here--the strange mix of decor, dress and undress provided an eye-catching tableau. Serendipity indeed!”
Steven Short of South Pasadena suggests that the text might have been: “For people who smoke, and aren’t sure where they are or what they’re supposed to be doing.”
In a splendid leap of the imagination, Floyd Levin of Studio City says my description reminds him of Edouard Manet’s famous 1863 masterpiece, “Dejeuner sur l’herbe,” in which two fully clothed men are picnicking in a woods with a naked woman and a second woman, semi-clothed. Manet’s theme, perspective and daring scandalized the French art world.
By the way, with reference to the post-coital ad young Ramsel had taken a break from, Mark Nichols of Beverly Hills says, “I’ve wondered what young people would do after lovemaking if they didn’t smoke.” What about TV?
James Morrison of Encinitas notes that recent cigarette ads often show one person who is not smoking: “The subliminal message is unmistakable: the smoker and the abstainer can be friends. In fact they can coexist (even dine) in the same fun-filled room.”
Morrison finds it curious that this ad, and most others, never show smoke curling upwards from the cigarettes. He wonders how they achieve this.
W. Scott Lanier calls my explanation “a contrived bit of pulp.” He says, “You seem to have overlooked the fact that men and woman can be friends (regardless of their age) and not have sex enter into it. . . . Did you consider they may be relatives? Family members laughing with a brother/cousin just waking from jet-lag-induced sleep? Are they evil simply because they smoke? . . . I was offended by your lack of depth and understanding. . . . It seems to have become chic (to use your term) to discriminate and ridicule smokers. . . . “
I just can’t believe that the people in that picture are family. The young women are too much of an age. They can’t be sisters. Of course they could be cousins. I feel quite sure, in any case, that the young man is a mascot.
And surely no one could object to others’ smoking if their cigarettes didn’t smoke.
