Decision Making Seen Through Thank You For Smoking By Jason Reitman
Questioning whether it is ethically right to defend something like tobacco sounds useless since we know the health consequences that come from smoking but the question is necessary. The film Thank You For Smoking touches on the topic of right and wrong. Instinctively, we would assume that taking the side of the tobacco lobbyists would be the wrong thing to do as it would seem like we’re disregarding the health effects of it but there are a few ways to justify taking that stance on the subject. The explanation of your decisions is what determines if what you did was right.
In the film Thank You For Smoking Nick Naylor is defending smoking not for his love of smoking but
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You will always be right if you can prove that the other option is wrong and you can explain why it is right to do what you did. Kidder’s dilemma paradigms can help us understand Nick’s decisions in the film. It must be understood that he is focused on doing what’s right for himself as a professional but also as a father to a young son. The choices he makes as a tobacco lobbyist may cause people to doubt his ability to be a responsible father but he is showing that he understands what the right choice is for the situation. Taking in consideration "truth vs loyalty," throughout the film it is clear that Nick is staying loyal to his boss and his job even though he has much like the rest of America 's population had education showing the dangers of smoking. This is the right decision because telling the absolute "truth" about smoking would ruin his career to a certain extent and that would make it hard to provide a good life for his son. As previously mentioned, his decision to keep defending smoking is allowing the "community" to keep their freedom of choice. The paradigm of "individual vs community" is very utilitarian oriented, he is willing to seem like a irresponsible person to the eyes of people who do not understand that he is preserving their freedom. The paradigm of "justice vs mercy" is also shown
The smoking issue is very complicated and some of the arguments are beyond the scope of this essay. Still, we can obtain a balanced outlook if we consider the following: the facts of smoking, individual right, societal responsibility, and the stigma of smoking. Haviland and King write essays which contain very important points, but seem to contain a bias which may alienate some people. To truly reach a consensus on the smoking issue, we must be willing to meet each other halfway. We must strike equilibrium between individual right and societal responsibility.
Nick Naylor’s claim was that warning labels should not be put on a product that people already knew was dangerous. In correlation with Naylor’s claim, Naylor’s warrant seems to be that people should decide for themselves. If someone knows a product is potentially dangerous, it should be up to the consumer to decide whether to use it. Also throughout the speech Nick Naylor gives seemingly legitimate arguments to support his cause and Big Tobacco.
Analysis of Peter Brimelow's Thank You for Smoking. Growing up with a best friend who has been smoking since middle school, I have seen many of the negative effects it has on a person. Football was a passion and way of life for Andy; however, smoking caused him to struggle with breathing while running up and down the field. He would cut down on his daily amount of cigarettes before and during the season, but cutting down was little help for him. Not only was his breathing affected by smoking, but he also had yellow teeth, a smoker’s cough, and would get “the shakes” when in need of a smoke.
Throughout the essay, he was unsure of which side he should have been on. He discussed his opinion and stories that support both arguments. A smoker knows the effects of smoking, as well as the obvious outcomes. Some smoke for the sake of smoking and most continue to smoke due to the effects of nicotine. Everyone seems to have an opinion on smoking, regardless of whether they do or don't.
In Thank You for Smoking, the angle of the frame often implies a sense of superiority or the sense of helplessness by an obviously superior force. Nick Naylor, Chief Spokesperson of The Academy of Tobacco Studies, explains to the audience that his job is to convince his clients, the busy, tired, and traveling that smoking is, in fact, an action that one should take part it. During Naylor’s narration, the viewer is exposed to a high angel shot scanning directly over a crowded, packed plane, implying Naylor’s sense of superiority to his clients. Naylor is aware that, just as the camera sans over the audience, he can win “over” his clients.
The cigarrette companies are not acting with social responsibility. Why or how could this be any bit of an ethical decision by the executives of the tobacco companies? These companies should believe and follow it’s moral set in the country it belongs and carry them into every business transaction that they make, whether it be in New York City or Mongolia. It is too bad that as a capitalistic society we lower ourselves below ethical lines just to earn a buck or two!
In the film Thank you for smoking, Nick Naylor- the main character of the film employs rhetorical devices such as re-framing, hyperbole and numerous logical fallacies to win his argument
I find myself standing on the author's side. However, I do have my disagreements with some of the author's reasoning. First, I would like to point out the area where I agree with the author. That is, I also feel that no matter how hard the tobacco industry try to influence us the use their product, at the end it is still the decision made by people. The cigarette companies don't shove cigarettes in our mouths. I do also agree that many kids take up smoking because they are under nurture and under educated. The one reason that I find myself disagreeing on is that the kids don't influenced by the atmosphere they grow up in. Just because she was not influenced her family of smokers doesn't mean that other kids won't. In my life experience, I have noticed that many of my friends that smoke has parents who smoke. That means kids are very easily influenced in the environment they grow up in. The main reason why I take on the author's position is that I do feel that we have done everything we could to let everyone know of the negative affects of smoking cigarettes.
Peter Brimelow’s “Thank You for Smoking…?” had me interested from the title alone. This essay lists a few of the benefits that can occur from smoking. Bimelow is aware of the many dangers of smoking as he acknowledges “the Environmental Protection Agency has claimed that ‘second hand smoke’ is a significant risk for nonsmokers and the Food & Drug Administration is making noises about regulating nicotine as a drug” (The Genre of Argument 141). Brimelow’s essay gives some reasons why and how smoking can be beneficial in some small ways. The message Brimelow is trying to get out is that, “smoking might be, in some small ways, good for you” (141). Brimelow uses words and phrases such as “might be” and “some” to narrow down his major claim. Brimelow’s major claim that smoking can be healthy in some ways. In some studies, certain cancers have been shown to appear less in smokers than nonsmokers. This leads us to believe that smoking may be beneficial in some ways. I think this essay is successful because of the evidence presented along with the narrow major claim.
Experiencing the death of a loved one is never easy, especially when the cause is something self-inflicted, such as cigarettes. Imagine if that loved one was your parent or even worse, your own child. Now, imagine watching the demise and physical incapacities that transpire while you see them deteriorate right in front of you. Feel the anger that would coarse through your veins if you were to see an add that glamorized such deadly instruments, particularly once you realize that the areas being marketed are lower class. Cigarettes are legal killers that cripple many individuals and families alike. They are a highly addictive substance that benefit no one. I am against cigarettes in every capacity as I have dealt with the effects of it on a personal level. Cigarettes leave a distaste in the mouth literally and figuratively. I am also a firm believer that
“Cigarette is one of the leading cause of death in the World!” “Cigarette can cause lungs cancer!” “Cigarette is harmful and is bad for society!” These are the things that the society taught us ever since we are young. Everyone knows that cigarette is harmful for the human body, but why does the percentage of people smoking is still high and is increasing every year. Why does it is so hard for people to quit or not try cigarette in the first place, despite knowing the consequences of this small, innocent looking-yet-deadly roll of paper. Clearly, the effort of our society to prevent people from smoking is not effective. Recently, more and more anti-smoking campaigns were produced by different corporations, in order to join the race in tobacco
...ave been successful. This same person would and has vehemently denied that there is anything remotely fascist in the anti-smoking movement or the manner in which it has been conducted. This is archetype behavior of individuals not wishing to confront or be confronted with the possibility that they’ve not understood how the cultural mass of which we are all a part, has been led down a path and sold a bill of goods that are not necessarily good. The inherent insidiousness of this is found in the blindness that is a byproduct of the zealous actions of the would be altruistic who lacks a basic understanding of the domino effect that once set into motion will ultimately turn back and demand the sacrifice of rights that these same zealots assume to be unquestionably theirs. In the final analysis one has to ask if perhaps we’ve just had smoke blown in our collective faces.
Thank you for smoking is a satirical comedy about a lobbyist whose job is to promote tobacco use at a time when the disease burden secondary to smoking threatens to cripple the nation. The film presents how industries, media and the government interact to influence the consumers’ decision. While the use of rhetoric, such as fallacies and twisted truths, is evident throughout the film, it is most evident midway when the chief spokesman, Nick Naylor, assists his son with his assignment. The son, Joey Naylor, enquires why the American government is the best and in response, the father argues it is because of America’s ‘endless appeals system’ (Thank you for smoking). His response seamlessly captures the tone of the movie as much as it represents the extensive use of a combination of fallacious arguments and twisted truths.
.I believe that the Tobacco industry is unethical, They provide a product that causes addiction and eventual death if smoking continues thought the majority of a person’s life. I think that the tobacco industry needs to take more responsibility for their product. I believe they should do this by not advertising on the false image of being a cigarette smoker and focus on what consumers are actually going to receive for their money when purchasing cigarettes. They should focus on the feeling it gives people, and what the cigarette experience actually is in the most literal terms. Also cigarette companies should tell costumers upfront in easy to read labels the long term and short term effects of smoking to let people clearly know what they are buying and what it’s effects are.
Smoking is one of the dangerous habits that people perform in their lives. This habit affects the health and causes several diseases, such as lung cancer, cardiovascular disease, and pulmonary disease (Institute of Medicine, 2012). In the family I visited, the father is a smoker. He strongly approves with the idea of smoking while the mother strongly disapproves the idea of smoking. Both of them know that smoking is harmful to the smoker, but the father does not know that smoking is harmful for other people who are called: second hand smokers. In addition, the father was at the age of 15 when he started smoking cigarettes. There is more than one reason that pushed the father to start smoking when he was a teenager. One of these reasons is copying the behavior of his father. He believes it would be difficult for him to give up smoking. I agree that quit of smoking is difficult since cigarettes contain nicotine, which is more addictive than heroin and also smoking becomes part of his daily routine (Giovanni, 2012).