The Book of Tells (Peter Collett)[unlocked]

THE BOOK OF TELLS
Finally there's the 'Bogart', named after Humphrey
Bogart, where the cigarette hangs down from the mouth.
Here the mood is preoccupied and brooding, sometimes
menacing. There was a time, several decades ago, when
every male who wanted to look cool had to employ the
'Bogart'. This included several famous movie stars, like
James Dean, John Wayne, and Humphrey Bogart himself.
As a smoke signal of coolness, the 'Bogart' has all but disappeared,
except in France, where it has become a
distinguishing feature of the way Frenchmen smoke their
cigarettes - a sign, not so much of coolness, but of égalité
and fraternité. In their time most of the French presidents
- De Gaulle, Pompidou, Mitterrand, Chirac - have been
photographed with a proletarian cigarette dangling from
their lower lip - something no self-respecting politician in
Britain or America would ever dream of doing.
Mouth-hold smoking postures convey a variety of
messages for men. But women seldom use them. That's
because women don't usually leave cigarettes in their
mouth between puffs — unless, of course, they're trying to
look like some femme fatale or like Dot Cotton from
EastEnders. The essential difference between these two
archetypes is that while Dot Cotton always speaks with a
cigarette in her mouth, a convincing femme fatale never
does. Instead, she allows the cigarette to speak on her
behalf. After all, that's what cigarettes and cigars do all the
time - they tell us about the people who smoke them.
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