Cigar

:This page is about the tobacco product; for other meanings of Cigar, see Cigar (disambiguation).

Cigars in culture

Cigars are often presented as stereotypical rich man's accessory. Cigars are often smoked to celebrate good fortune, especially the birth of a child. Some buy and keep a cigar 'for luck' with regard to a bet, with the intention of smoking it after winning the bet.

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King Edward VII enjoyed smoking cigarettes and cigars, but his mother, Queen Victoria, did not like smoking. After her death, legend has it, King Edward said to his male guests at the end of a dinner party, "Gentlemen, you may smoke". In his name, a line of cheap American cigars has long been named King Edward.

Related Topics:
King Edward VII - Queen Victoria

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It is perhaps important for the cigar smoker to ritualize their habit and to smoke fine and expensive cigars, for the addictive element of cigaretters is also present in the cigar: nicotine. The smoker can minimize their risk of addiction, and resulting cancers, by treating the cigar as a special occasion, and as noted above logging their smokes. This comes closest to the Native American use of the tobacco plant.

Related Topics:
Nicotine - Addiction

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The risk of addiction is lowered by today's anti-smoking forces which would not have credited the smells and the litter of a midcentury American railway "lounge" car, nor that of a home where the paterfamilias had his favorite Sunday afternoon cigar, and cigar smoking today returns to its ritual origins because of anti-smoking pressure.

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Two men who died during the zenith of the cigar's popularity owing ultimately to nicotine addiction and the consequent oral cancer were President Ulysses S. Grant of the USA and Dr. Sigmund Freud.

Related Topics:
President Ulysses S. Grant - USA - Dr. Sigmund Freud

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Although Grant was able for the duration of the Civil War to stop drinking, he was most often seen with a cigar and after his Presidency, Grant contracted cancer. Not wishing to leave his wife Julia penniless, Grant decided to write and publish his memoirs while in great pain.

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Freud likewise succumbed in the 1930s to a habit which he seems to have been reluctant to psychoanalyze. Being challenged on the "phallic" shape of the cigar, Freud is supposed to have replied "sometimes, a cigar is only a cigar".

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Interestingly, two famous men with the name Marx were cigar smokers. Karl Marx smoked cigars in his cheap London dwellings not knowing how their smoke might affect his children, who he loved. Groucho Marx was also a heavy cigar smoker.

Related Topics:
Karl Marx - Groucho Marx

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Famous quotes about the cigar include not only Freud's but also "a woman is only a woman: but a good cigar is a smoke" and "what this country needs is a good five cent cigar". The cigar was also a staple for vaudeville jokes and slapstick, from the overexcited new father who says "have a baby, my wife just had a cigar" to the exploding cigar which may have been a coded proletarian gesture of resistance to the cigar, which with the top hat and tails was the semiotic for "capitalism" in the early 20th century.

Related Topics:
Proletarian - Capitalism

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Since apart from certain forms of heavily cured and strong snuff, the cigar is the most potent form of self-dosing with tobacco, it has long had associations of being a male rite of passage, as it may have had during the pre-Columbian era in America. Its fumes and rituals have in American and European cultures established a "men's hut"; in the 19th century, men would retire to the "smoking room" after dinner, to discuss "serious" issues.

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Also, the third installment of Hideo Kojima's famous Metal Gear Solid series, , features a brief portion in which the main character describes why he thoroughly enjoys cigars, somewhat akwardly describing the experience as "almost sensual".

Related Topics:
Hideo Kojima - Metal Gear Solid

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