Almost a decade after his last live-action iteration, “Constantine” returns. Only this time, the antiheroic Hellblazer is coming to our television sets. And with that switch to the small screen, something has been lost.
Since his inception in 1984, an integral part of John Constantine”s character has been his addiction to smoking. But a lot has changed in 30 years, and cigarettes are not the “Instant Cool” factor they used to be. So no matter that it”s not exactly “glorifying” smoking to have a main character who sold his soul to Satan to stave off terminal lung cancer, you can”t have the kiddies thinking it”s okay to light up. (And don”t even get us started on if they”ll ever let TV Constantine be bi-sexual.)
So NBC has banned “Constantine” from showing smoking in any capacity. John can fiddle with cigarettes or his lighter, but he cannot be shown inhaling. Cue “I did not inhale” joke that shows my age.
But doesn”t that seem a bit disingenuous, even for network television? We did some very light digging and came up with at least 10 other things that have been “okay” to show on primetime TV that are definitely more horrific than lighting up a cigarette.