Thank you for smoking

Aaron Vetter

Movie analysis:

“Thank you for Smoking”


Even before I saw this movie on the list I knew I was going to have to write about it. My group chose to study the tobacco companies and their advertising/marketing techniques and I think this movie, although fictional, is probably very accurate. This movie brings up the point that in winning an argument both positions mean nothing. You’re not after convincing the other person of your argument, just that theirs is illogical and really it’s all about what the audience hears.
Throughout the entire movie Nick Naylor “Big Tobacco’s” spokesperson is involved in many confrontations and through smooth talking he manages to go in the exact direction he intended. Tobacco Industries have the money to hire people exactly like Nick Naylor to talk down bad press. In the movie, the Senator from Vermont is pushing a new law that would have a skull and cross bones printed on every packet of cigarettes to remind people again of how they are bad for you. This is redundant in itself and I think the movie was making fun of how many anti-smoking advertisements can be found on smoke-able products.
Tobacco and America have held hands from the very beginning. It was the cash crop that enabled America to have something special and different that the whole world was interested in. People have come to terms with the fact that smoking is bad for you. It is all a personal decision at the end of the day. Near the end of the movie Nick is in trial and somebody asks him if he would let his child smoke, to which he responds that he would not because he is not of the legal age much less the fact that nobody would want their kid to smoke. The matter is pressed and the man finally yells if Nick would support his son smoking on his 18th birthday, to which he replied, “If he really wants to smoke…I will buy him his first pack”. This statement is a basic understanding that he wants his son to have the right whether he chooses to smoke or not.
A lot of the movie time is spent in courts just like tobacco in the real world. A wave of lawsuits in the early 90’s saw the biggest ban on smoking advertisements to date. This movie was released in 2006 and I think it was a nice perspective switch. All you ever hear about is negative news and publicity and this movie made you feel sympathy with the tobacco company. Nick stops smoking by the end of the movie, eventually does start his own motivational speech school and the tobacco companies can hire somebody new. Life goes on and as long as people still smoke um they will still roll um.

Peace