Yeah fine I give in

It has long been an issue of contention as to whether smoking in the media directly affects whether people grow up to become smokers, and as articles from both 1993 and 2009 show, the lines of argument involved haven't really changed:

BBC article

Some other article

In all seriousness, the issue of portrayal of smoking in films and television is an insane one. Films such as Thank You For Smoking pointedly refuse to have anyone smoke onscreen. However go any earlier than the late 90s and every lead role is defined by their ability to casually hold a cancer stick. But I will do some wild dismissal in the form of 'kids are influenced by anything and everything, as are most adults, and the television and film industries are obviously central to this, especially when they are the increasingly preferred form of recreation to spending time with your family.'

I choose to level cynicism instead at the desire to be cool, which smoking seems to have become attached to. No one can deny the flawless effervescence of such people:

Susan Sontag

Rita Hayworth as Gilda

But you can definitely argue that their qualities of beauty, intelligence, charisma, and so on, definitely don't stem from smoking. Smoking is something they get away with because of or in spite of, their beauty, intelligence, etc etc. It could be more pertinent to ask how many bad guys smoke in films, and if this adds to their role as the vice of the piece. Does the good guy smoke if the bad guy does? Does the bad guy always smoke cigars? Scrolling through some articles right now, the surveys taken on the subject revealed that it doesn't matter who is shown smoking: as long as they are smoking, teens and yoofs are influenced.
I guess smoking is cool, after all.