Smoking Manners # 4

I just love these posters so much.

They are such a mix of contraditions and contrast.

On the one hand they're very practical - they are a government-funded campaign to make smokers think about the effects of their habit on others. Thus they should be straight-forward and direct. Indeed, the style of illustration is direct; the arrows, stick-figures and the labels in capital letters puts one in mind immediately of an instruction-manual. The thinking behind each point is also straight forward enough. In this example: although it seems cool to flick cigarrette onto the floor with a movie-star flourish, in fact it is simple littering.

However while the idea is simple, its expression is bizarre. Part of the reason for this, is that the English is a transliteration not a translation - the words have been simply changed to accurate and grammatically correct English, as opposed to thinking what would a native English speaker say in such a situation. In this way they fit with a very Japanese tradition of writing obscure English on posters and t-shirts. (See Engrish.com for more examples than you could ever want)

And yet it is more than that. Choosing to make the point with reference to "Old Movie" is odd. A simple poster could easily make the point: littering - especially frowned upon in Japan - is littering, whether it's a half-eaten burger, or a cigarette; without the distraction of bringing in Cowboys and all the accompanying Western paraphenallia (cactus, saddled horse), all precisely labeled - whether a label is necessary or appropriate or not: "hero", "villian", "a long time ago".

The result is confusion - one begins wondering how these posters were ever thought up. Should you just laugh at these amateur scribblings, or are they in fact cleverer than one might at first think: a mix of amusement and bemusement if you will. To me, this almost zen-sensation, the result of a surreal clash between eccentricity and the prosaic is what makes them so engaging.