Second Face Smoke

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Ah, The Fifties...


One character blows cigar or cigarette smoke in another character's face as an expression of defiance, dominance, or just plain jerkassery.

The person on the receiving end may react in a number of ways, from stoically putting up with it, to casually wafting it away, to breaking into a racking fit of coughing. In cartoons the cloud of smoke may dissipate to reveal an Ash Face.

A Sub-Trope of Good Smoking, Evil Smoking; this behaviour will generally be an indicator of an Evil Smoker, although a good Cigar Chomper may be able to get away with it.

Examples of Second Face Smoke include:


Anime and Manga

  • In the Yakuza arc of Black Lagoon, Revy does this to Chaka in response to his talk about having a gunfight with her.
  • Yotsuba&!: Torako did this to Yotsuba in their first encounter.
  • In November 11's introductory scene in Darker than Black, he's dealing with some gangsters and voices his extreme disapproval of smoking early on. When they try to double cross him, one of them lights up and contemptuously blows smoke in his face. Big mistake.

Comic Books

  • Spider-Man: J. Jonah Jameson does this a lot; Spidey has found ways of reversing it on him once in a while.
  • Knights of the Dinner Table: Gary Jackson, being a Jerkass, smokes at the gaming table and sometimes blows smoke into the face of his players; usually to emphasise some point.

Film (Live Action)

Fox: Shermin, you are finished. I will have you eviscerated for this.
Shermin: Well, as much as I hate to stoop to symbolism...
(Shermin takes a puff from cigar and blows smoke into Fox's face)

Crow: ...And that's just his breath.

Film (Animated)

Literature

  • Blackmarketeer Joseph Porta in the WW 2 books by Sven Hassel smokes a cigar purely for this reason, as Al Capone (the only Italian among millions that Porta looks up to and wishes to imitate) always does this in the movies.

Live Action TV

  • At one point in Red Dwarf, Lister and Rimmer are in the movie theater, all alone, and Rimmer insists that Lister, who is smoking, move three seats over to be in the smoking section. Since Rimmer was a hologram, Lister was able to then blow smoke right through Rimmer"s face.
  • Miranda Richardson's character does this to Blackadder in Blackadder Goes Forth.
  • Cheers: Rebecca does this to Sam when he tries to get her to give up smoking.
  • George Burns does this to Intrepid Reporter Fleet Scribbler- who's out for as much as can be dug up on The Muppet Show.
  • The Australian comedy series Full Frontal had a spoof involving a Political Correctness Gone Mad remake of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly called "The Good, The Bad, and the Unpleasant Person". The Clint Eastwood character is facing off with the Unpleasant Person, who is blowing smoke from a cheroot into his face.

Clint: I think we'd better step outside.
Unpleasant Person: You wanna fight with guns?!
Clint: No. I have an adverse reaction to passive smoking.

  • In the 2007's Battlestar Galactica Dr. Baltar plays cards with Starbuck and wins everything in the pot, to Starbuck's disdain. He then proceeds to rub it in even more by giving Starbuck one of his last cigarettes and lighting it for her. She takes it, then pulls a long drag and proceeds to blow it in his face. He doesn't flinch, though.

Professional Wrestling

  • At Wrestlemania V, Morton Downey Jr made the fatal mistake of blowing smoke in the face of Rowdy Roddy Piper. Piper retaliated by blasting Downey with a fire extinguisher.

Theatre

  • Guys and Dolls, during the title song, has a sight gag where a doll who's been shopping does this to her hapless guy who carries all her packages and lights her cigarette.

Western Animation

  • In the Futurama episode "Three Hundred Big Boys", Bender steals a fabulously expensive cigar expressly for the purpose of blowing its smoke into the faces of the "fantsy-pantses" at an upscale art gallery.
  • Tom and Jerry has had it happen on more than one occasion—but Jerry wises up at one point and comes out of the mousehole in a gas mask, while Tom has turned green from blowing so much smoke.

Real Life

  • The Ku Klux Klan captured some young black men and chased them, beat them, castrated them and whipped them before asking them if they had any last requests before being lynched. One man asked for a last cigarette. When his request was granted, his last act was to light the thing and blow the smoke into his captor's face.