Thank You For Smoking

So Free It's Deadly

The expectation in Thank You for Smoking quarrels the premise of good satire in that everyone is hypocritical and corrupt. Nick Naylor is portrays as a suave and charismatic lobbyist who defends the tobacco industry's daily conflict against anti-smoking protesters, all while being a devoted father to his wide-eyed son.

Since our culture of critical spin has saturated modern America, there has been a great deal of uncertain agreement between the government and private agencies revising our cultural document to excise smoking. The idea of smoking has become the bogeyman of (liberal) American society. In this case Thank You for Smoking illustrates the moral equivalence of politics and ridicules anti-smoking advocates. For example, Senator Finsiterre attempts the use of "scare tactics" by placing a skull with cross bones on cigarette boxes, a visual gag to continuously alert consumers that they are buying poison. However, at the Joan London show a 15-year-old cancer patient is publicized as a prop to delude the audience that smoking causes cancer. In skepticism Naylor wittingly begs the question: "Why would cigarettes want to kill this boy? Wouldn't we want him living as long as possible, and buying our products!?" Naylor then adds an incentive, concluding that the tobacco industry would gladly advertise fifty million dollars worth of anti-teen smoking. When the political lackey goes back to his boss, he gets a lecture in selecting more pathetic "cancer boys" to pull in public sympathy. They need big sad eyes and wheelchairs, the senator explains. This demonstrates the slyness and deceit of politics.

Nick defends the very hardest thing to defend--cancer-inflicting products-- because it is the steepest challenge he could find, and the challenge fulfills him. He declares, "Michael Jordan plays basketball. Charles Manson kills people.