In today’s assignment I will be talking about the movie Thank You for Smoking, a 2005 American satirical black comedy movie written and directed by Jason Reitman starring Aaron Eckhart. The movie is based on the 1994 satirical novel of the same name by Christopher Buckley. In his feature film, the American director based the plot of his movie on a book which problematized the big tobacco companies and their efforts to hide the risks of smoking. The movie dives into both sides of the problem and talk about the unethical behavior of big business in America through satirical content.
The movie revolves around Nick Taylor, who is chief spokesman for Big Tobacco, a name used to refer to the largest global tobacco industry companies. He lobbies on behalf of cigarettes for a tobacco lobby called the “Academy of Tobacco Studies”, which has been researching the link between tobacco and lung disease. He constantly uses spin tactics in his effort to suit tobacco companies. Throughout the movie he tries to be with his son and spend time with him, which is ironical – constantly using unethical behavior and trying to remain a role model for his son does not go hand in hand.
As what the movie director Jason Reitman said about his work, “What I wanted people to think about was political correctness. I wanted them to think about ideas of personal responsibility and personal choice. I think cigarettes are a wonderful location for that discussion because cigarettes are something we know all the answers to”, he posits. “I wanted to look into this idea of why we feel the need to tell each other how to live and why we can’t take personal responsibility for our own actions when we fall ill from things that we know are dangerous.” In the context of personal choice and political correctness the movie made a good point, and the object of tobacco and cigarettes are a good example because everybody knows they are bad for your health, the ones that govern for their prohibition and the ones that smoke them.
Additionally, in the words of the author Joseph J. Foy, whose book is included in our literature, he says „Thank You for Smoking helps demonstrate how interest groups use money not only to influence government officials through direct lobbying efforts but also to create a favorable public climate through positive advertising and the silencing of critics“. Indeed the interest groups spread deep into the media and internet space today, through the power of Internet and social media marketing, words of interest groups today can go a far longer way then what they used to go, and can change the way the public responds to given subjects. It can be a good thing or a very bad thing. I remembered a quote, but don’t know the author, it goes something like this – ‘everything you read is payed by someone for you to read it.’
To conclude, I think Thank You for Smoking proved to give a great view on how lobbyists have a big role in portraying the public opinion on a given product or a general viewpoint on certain things. The critical reception of the movie did not go very well but I really liked it and personally I liked the most the portrayal of the power of speech and how some people go on in life with only their talent of being a ‘sweet talker’. I concluded the moto of the movie for myself and I think it’s the famous saying – if you repeat a lie many times enough, it becomes the truth.
Quotes taken from: Joseph J. Foy, Madisonian Pluralism and Interest Group Politics: Inhaling Democracy, Choking on Elitism, in: Joseph Foy (ed.) Homer Simpson Goes to Washington: American Politics through Popular Culture, The UP of Kentucky, 2008, pp. 117-132
