This is a really interesting post. I wonder who wrote the scripts for these ads - the former smokers, or someone else. If I take it upon myself as someone with condition X to educate others and help them avoid my own perceived mistakes, do I still promote stigma of condition X? Certainly less so than if I've been recruited to say these lines and nothing more - and if I've agreed to do the commercial, can it be assumed that I agree with the message? Can it even be assumed I've seen the finished product with all its editing?

Very interesting

I find it unfortunate that, above all else, bodies with missing limbs or hair are being portrayed as grotesque, undesireable, and disgusting. How is this reinforcing public perception about "abnormal" bodies? What are we supposed to think about the girl who lost her arm in a car accident? Or the man who may have fought for this country and lost a leg in the process? It's sad that these commercials emphasize that such differences are inherently bad or gross and uses that idea to try and scare viewers.

I think they're effective.  Smoking behaviors are largely based on denial-once you start plowing through that denial, you may be able to quit.  It's one of the things that finally made me give up cigarettes many years ago.

To play devil's advocate: What's wrong w/these former smokers presenting themselves in this way? I'm assuming no one forced them to do these PSAs; who are we to tell them how to feel about their own bodies? Why shouldn't they be allowed to warn us about the dangers of smoking? I don't think anyone would argue that smoking isn't dangerous/unhealthy/etc., so don't these people in the PSAs have a valid point?

I don't see any of these ads as being coarse or poking fun. It's reality and I assume that most people, as I was, were made uncomfortable at the thought of at least have a stoma. It is merely showing the effects of smoking, not of car accidents, war injuries, or things starting from birth. That has nothing to do with it.

It's also interesting that these ads seem to presume smoking is a behavioural choice that people can be convinced to give up, which is a very different framing than as a physiological addiction requiring treatment -- even though nicotine is one of the most addictive substances known. 

I, for one, am extremely proud of the bravery it took to do these ads. I would like to tell each one of them thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Beautiful and poignant. I didn't see any deflection from the truth, any mockery, or any stigma. I saw education and poise, something that must have taken a lot of strength. I don't know that I would have been courageous enough to do a spot like this!

I'm glad you addressed this! I keep seeing these ads and thinking of a friend who breathes through a stoma for reasons unrelated to smoking. I support the anti-smoking message but I hate that the ads present disabled bodies as gross and scary. I also worry that certain disabilities will be connected to bad behavior (in this case, smoking) in the public imagination, so that people will be blamed for their disabilities. (This is already happening to fat people with disabilities.)

It is also interesting to contrast these ads, which focus on negative health effects and bodies to ads from the California Tobacco Control Program which often focus on denormalizing the activity of smoking (emphasizing smoking belongs outside, pointing out that smoking can be decoupled from drinking, or that smoking in one apartment affects a whole building) and targeting the industry as a vector of disease (pointing out that the behavior is manufactured and promoted by a corporate entity).  These ads have been shown to be very effective (generally by reinforcing the ideas that not smoking indoors is normative and reminding people of corporate interests promoting the activity) when combined with other measures and a strong, local focused, tobacco control program.

While a lot of people feel that the disabilities smokers' experience are their due punishments, I think it's problematic for us to frame some disabilities as ugly and deserved but others less negatively. Continuing to use disabled people as "warning labels," like you say, reinforces the idea that disabilities are inherently bad, disgusting, etc., and disabled people are undesirable and broken. 

I'm also wary of how readily we tell people what decisions to make with their own bodies. Asking people not to smoke in public, where second-hand smoke can hurt others? That's one thing. But shaming or scaring people into quitting "for their own good" -- framing smoking as a moral decision -- is a bit troubling to me. We do the same thing with fat people: we tell them they should slim down "for their own good," we imply that they're bad people (impulsive, selfish) for being fat, and so on. There's a similar theme of trying to control people's bodies and health decisions in the anti-choice movement. 

Most people are willing to overlook the creepiness of telling others how to live when it comes to smoking, because we pretty much all agree that smoking is bad (and the science backs up that conclusion, unlike with fatness). But I think we need to recognize that shaming and scaring people into making personal health decisions is creepy, no matter what the context. 

I'll have to think this one over. I suspect my reaction to these ads is connected somehow to my reaction to the anti-meth ads which focus on meth's impact on users' looks.  A part of me always thinks, "As if that's the point!" I would really like to see a study of users' reactions to ads of this type, and their efficacy versus, say, the type of ad described by Evilbunnytoo.