everett00

[everett00]

Thank You for Smoking essay.

The film that I will be covering is "Thank You for Smoking" 2006. This film impacted me because it was one of the first satirical comedies that I had seen on a topic like the advertising of smoking and led me to watch many similar satirical movies like "The Wolf of Wall Street". The movie was certainly a commercial success, making $39,323,027 with a budget of only $6,500,000. One of the things that the producers relied upon in order to get a return on investment was the use of big actors such as J.K. Simmons, David Koechner, and Willium H Macy. It was also based on a famous book of the same name. One of the possible limiting factors of the movie would be that the topics covered in the movie are definitely targeted towards a mature audience, with death due to smoking being one of the main themes of the movie. The reviews of this movie have stayed relatively consistent since the release of the movie, being overwhelmingly positive. Roger Ebert's review of the movie when it first came out was very positive stating ""Thank You for Smoking" targets the pro-smoking lobby with a dark appreciation of human nature". A more recent review by Metacritic states "This movie is satire done right. It manages to pull all the strings to break conventions on how we see corporations and activists to add a nuance we (intentionally or not) erase from other human". Rewatching this movie this week, I definitely had a much different perspective due to having much more knowledge of all of the things covered. This movie is definitely a conventional film. There were many famous actors involved, a large budget, and the topic being covered, although not inoffensive, was one that was widely accepted and not particularly something that would limit the audience by anything other than age.

The energy that this film brings to the table is excellently portrayed in the opening scene to the film where the main character explains what he does for a living and proceeds to go into an interview where he comedically turns it around on the opposition even though he is clearly in the wrong.

In Roger Ebert's review of the movie, he gives an excellent summary that goes as follows: "Nick Naylor is a pleasant, good-looking career lobbyist who is divorced, loves his son Joey (Cameron Bright) and speaks to the kid's class on career day. "Please don't ruin my childhood," Joey pleads, but his dad cross-examines a little girl whose mother says cigarettes can kill you: "Is your mother a doctor?" Once a week he dines with the MOD Squad, whose other members are alcohol lobbyist Polly Bailey (Maria Bello) and firearms lobbyist Bobby Jay Bliss (David Koechner). They argue over which of their products kills the most people. The initials MOD stand for "Merchants of Death.""

This movie was also significant due to all of the smoking bans that were being put into place at the time of the film's release. "Throughout the early to mid-2000s, especially between 2004 and 2007, an increasing number of states enacted a statewide smoking ban of some kind" This caused the film not only to be even more funny, but also to be a culturally significant film, raising awareness of the dangers of smoking, and helping people to recognize many of the backhanded advertising techniques used by cigarette companies.

List of smoking bans in the United States as of 2008

Overall, I think that this was an excellent movie in many ways. It was extremely funny, had a cultural significant message about the big tobacco industry, and increased awareness about some real issues that were contentious at the time. This movie still holds up over fifteen years later and I enjoyed watching it this time just as much as I did the first time.