Thank You for Smoking

Thank You for Smoking (2006, directed by Jason Reitman, with a screenplay by Reitman and Christopher Buckley based on Buckley's novel) is a satire about a tobacco lobbyist, Nick Taylor, played by Aaron Eckhart. He is vice president and lobbyist for the "Academy of Tobacco Studies." His job is to oppose all arguments against the dangers of tobacco. The film scrupulously adheres to his point of view and presents him as a sympathetic character. Although his job is odious, Nick himself is likeable enough, if you can divorce him from his vocation. The film does not always allow you to do this. Nick's name is a pun—Nick for Nicotine, Nick for Old Scratch, Old Nick, Satan.

Nick is the best spin doctor in the business. He can talk his way out of a paper bag. He blithely argues that tobacco is harmless and that there is no evidence of its dangers. He can refute or at least obfuscate his way around every argument the anti-tobacco lobby mounts. But when he sleeps with an attractive young reporter (Katie Holmes), he spills out all his secrets and opinions, and she prints them in an op-ed piece. Nick loses his job and his self-confidence, and his relationship with his young son, who idolizes him, is endangered as well.

Thank You for Smoking is about Nick Taylor's rise and fall and rise. It's also about the power of lobbyists and spinmeisters and their ability to make hardcore facts and years of research seem like so much, uh, smoke. Beyond that, it's about the dangers such lobbyists and the industries they represent for the safety of the American public and of American democracy.

Nick's victory comes when he testifies before a Congressional panel, admitting that tobacco is harmful but at the same time attacking those who want to regulate it. He uses advocacy of free choice and individualism to diverft attention from the dangers of cigarettes. As a result he regains the respect of his son and of his former boss, who offers him his job back. Nick refuses. Instead he starts his own lobbyist firm. It's not that he's redeemed, not in any sense of the word. It's just that he now has the confidence to pick and choose among the nefarious companies that want him to represent the benefits of their odious products in the face of all evidence to the contrary.

Nick has no conscience. You keep wondering when at some point his conscience may rise and assert itself, but the moment never comes. Even when, after losing his job, he testifies before Congress and admits that he knows cigarettes are dangerous, he refuses to advocate that the tobacco industry be controlled or punished. He argues instead for an educated public's ability to choose whether to smoke. The irony, of course, is that with people like Nick arguing that there is no evidence of the dangers of tobacco and of smoking, the public will never be educated enough to make intelligent choices, or will be too confused. When a senator asks whether he wants his son to smoke cigarettes, he dodges the question and instead replies that if when his son turns 18 he chooses to smoke he will buy his first pack of cigarettes.

Humor in this film comes from how it refrains from any kind of editorializing. It takes its approach to its subject as far as it can possibly go. Thank You for Smoking depends on the ability of the audience to realize that the film is not actually sympathetic to the tobacco industry or tobacco lobbyists. It's risky for a film or an artist to rely on audience judgment in that way. I'm sure some audience members are outraged by the film and don't get the joke. And some who get the joke are outraged anyway because they lack a sense of humor. Thank You for Smoking is, in fact, fairly vicious in its attack on the tobacco industry and its willingness to do whatever is necessary to preserve profits. It also bluntly attacks the American public for its ignorance and gullibility, which allow lobbyists and PR hacks like Nick Taylor to do their work.

Thank You for Smoking reminded me of Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal," which suggests that the Irish should earn money by selling their children for food. Swift's satire is an attack on how English landlords mistreat and abuse their tenants. It's a work of moral outrage. Every time I have taught it, some student in the class refuses to see anything but the surface of the essay—a student to whom irony and sarcasm and humor have no meaning. Some people are too obtuse for irony.

This modest film is distinguished by a fine soundtrack (with many songs about cigarette smoking—it's amazing how many of them there are ) and effective, colorful cinematography. It's entertaining, it makes you mad as it makes you laugh, and it's full of wit , satire, incisive political and cultural commentary, and memorable characters.

Two of Nick's best friends are lobbyists for the liquor and gun industries. He meets with them once a week. They jokingly refer to themselves as the M.O.D. Squad--"M.O.D. for "Merchants of Death").