Rhetorical Analysis of the Movie Thank You for Smoking

Nick Naylor, a lobbyist for Big Tobacco companies uses rhetoric to persuade his audience that smoking is not as unsafe as perceived by the society, by shifting its dangers to unimportant issues. As the lead campaigner for Big Tobacco Companies, he is hired to create a positive image of tobacco thereby maximizing profit for these companies. In the movie “Thank you for smoking,” Naylor employs various fallacies to demonstrate how arguments can distract an audience from their original values, beliefs and concerns.

A common fallacy used by Mr. Naylor in the movie is the red herring fallacy. Here, the debater deliberately throws a discussion off course and create a different vision of the original topic. While speaking at the senatorial subcommittee hearing, Naylor argues that people should not be influenced by poison signs on cigarettes; instead; they should be responsible for making their own choices and educating themselves on the dangers of the product, rather than using a warning label for something people consider to be potentially dangerous. To buttress his point at the Congress Meeting, he says, “Gentlemen, it's called education. It doesn't come off the side of a cigarette carton. It comes from our teachers, and more importantly our parents. It is the job of every parent to warn their children of all the dangers of the world, including cigarettes, so that one day when they get older they can choose for themselves.” .He tactically shifts the issue from the dangers of smoking, addiction, and health to that of education which is one of the core values of the American people .Not only does Naylor shift the issue of smoking to that of education, he also shifts issues again from smoking to freedom. Naylor says that it is peopl...

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... polishing fallacy to appeal to the vanity of his audience. While on the Jenny Joan Talk Show he referred to the audience as the “fine concerned people.”Mr. Nick is aware of the effect of commendations and compliments and uses this as a yard stick to appeal to the emotions of the audience by applying this skill for his personal victory against his opponent.

Throughout the movie, rhetorical strategies was used to distract, persuade or inform the audience about smoking and anti-smoking issues. Different characters in the movie practically use various fallacious reasoning to mislead their targets and disprove their opponents, however, the fallacies used by Mr. Naylor were intentionally used with ease. it is imperative to applaud Mr. Naylor for being a noble lobbyist. He truly deserves the title "The Sultan of Spin.” as expressed by his son Joey Naylor.