I watched the movie Thank You for Smoking, which is about Nick Naylor, the vice president of the Academy of Tobacco Studies. He is “the face of cigarettes”, and a lobbyist who knows statistically 1,200 people die a day from smoking, but Nick casts his morals aside in order to sell his product to the people. His talent is twisting words in his favor, and states, “Michael Jordan plays ball, Charles Manson kills people, everyone has a talent,” to describe and justify his deception to the public.
The movie talks about the evils of sin through selling merchandise like cigarettes, guns, and alcohol. It emphasizes deciding for yourself whether they are bad or not. This is blatantly ironic though, because the movie is based around selling a product that people already know the dangers of, and changing the minds of the public in favor of a harmful artifact.
The movie talks about redemption coming from the individual. I think that it has a theme of living life how you would see fit, and not to the glory of anyone else (including a higher power). It is definitely pacifying us for the empire. It shows us the power of product placement, and how far companies will go to keep the public from the truth (for example the Academy of Tobacco Studies paid millions of dollars to a man who got lung cancer from smoking cigarettes to keep him from going public with his story). It also showed people being backhanded and exploiting “lower society” for personal gain. For example, Nick Naylor’s boss stole his idea to put the “sex back in cigarettes”, in order to impress the highest authority. Also the Senator of Wisconsin exploited a young cancer patient to help with his campaign (which ended up backfiring).
Thank You for Smoking encourages us to believe in ourselves, and to follow our talents (no matter how deceitful). It takes a very individualistic approach, and promotes freedom of choice, while also suggesting our minds are being made up for us. For example, a sly movie executive, when asked if he was concerned about the health issues he was promoting by putting cigarettes back in movies, stated, “I’m not a doctor, I’m a facilitator. I bring creative people together. Whatever information there is it’s out there, and it’s up to the people to decide for themselves. It’s not my job to decide for them. It would be morally presumptuous.” To which Nick Naylor thought, “I could learn something from this guy.” In a world that’s full of deceit, the movie Thank You for Smoking gives us a good glimpse into the life of a man whose job is to basically put blinders on the public.
I forgot to write my discussion questions!! Here we go:
ReplyDelete1) How are we, as consumers, susceptible to advertisement for products even though we know there are great potential risks to them (such as cigarettes)?
2) Is it easy to overlook morals when it comes to a job? How can we stay “moral” even when our job calls us not to be?
It's helpful when viewing a film to remember that there are people behind what we see on the screen: writers, producers, directors, actors, and more. And while this might seem obvious, it's helpful to keep in mind when determining what a film is trying to say as a piece of art. For example, the story within the film might be about the life of a tobacco company marketer, but the way the story is told might be an attempt to point out hypocrisies inherent in such a life.
ReplyDeleteSo, why do you think the filmmakers made this film and chose to tell this story? Do you think they were advocating deceptive marketing or were they trying to expose it as fallacy?