Flying and Smoking: Sensory Bodies, Identity
and Circus Cigarette Advertisements
Abstract
This article analyses three examples o f cigarette advertisements for
the Camel brand published in the annual programs o f the Ringling
Bros, and Barnum & Bailey Circus: The Greatest Show on Earth®
with aerialists Rose Gould in 1948, Antoinette Concello in 1950, and
Norma Fox in 1951. It describes the acts o f the three aerialists and
considers the ways in which these particular program advertisements
engage circus spectators with images o f female aerialists doing
extreme feats on the flying trapeze and then smoking after the act. If
athletic circus performers could make smoking seem alluring, as both
physically daring and socially adventurous, these advertisements
reiterate how the act o f smoking signals female emancipation and
potentially also sexual availability (Tinkler 2006). This article
explores the co-option o f images o f health and glamour—the body’s
social surface. Simone Dennis (2006) argues that the action o f
smoking is a bodily experienced phenomenon, and these Camel
cigarette advertisements can be said to surreptitiously align smoking
with the felt bodily thrills o f viewing the circus. The larger point is
that responses to popular entertainment are not only about the
targeted appeal o f words and images but also a conjunction o f these
with a sensory body phenomenology. Three images courtesy o f
Circus World Museum, Baraboo, Wisconsin with permission from
Ringling Bros, and Barnum & Bailey ®.
Cigarette advertisements depicted world-leading female trapeze performers
in the mid-twentieth century in a fascinating convergence of smoking and
athleticism, and sexualised social and physical daring. These advertisements
bring together at least two forms of popular entertainment—circus and print
comic strips—smoking might be considered a third form.1 This article
contextualises and analyses three examples of cigarette advertisements for the
Camel brand published in the annual programs of the Ringling Bros, and
Barnum & Bailey Circus: The Greatest Show on Earth® (RBBBC): a 1948
advertisement featuring Rose Gould (advertisement 1, p. 6), a 1950
advertisement featuring Antoinette Concello (advertisement 2, p. 7), and a 1951
advertisement featuring La Norma (Norma Fox) (advertisement 3, p. 8).2 In the
mid-twentieth century, these female trapeze performers were celebrity
performers comparable to film stars, with acts seen live by a mass audience in
the USA and which set artistic precedents world-wide. In what ways did these
particular program advertisements engage circus spectators? In these