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Hayley Cobb

Dr. Charles Taylor

COMM 285

8 November 2017

Thank You For Smoking Critical Analysis

Corporate rhetors are expected to advocate for their company and its products or services.

Many times, products that are harmful to society are overlooked when advertising and methods

of promotion are being considered. Thank You For Smoking does a productive job at satirizing

lobbyists who work for tobacco, alcohol, and firearm corporations while also raising ethical

issues regarding journalism, social responsibility, and corporate discourse. As Nick Naylor

traveled to Los Angeles for his company Big Tobacco to advocate for more cigarette placement

in Hollywood productions, we saw his decisions for this company affect his personal and

professional life as well as the lives of others involved (Reitman, 2005). The ethicality of

Naylor’s decisions and the decisions of journalists and other lobbyists surrounding him can be

assessed by examining the ethical responsibility of corporate rhetors and challenges faced by

these characters.

Nick Naylor was faced with some of his own internal ethical issues involving the

collision of his career and being a father. Conversations between Naylor and his son, Joey,

pushed his son to be more like him in the sense that his argumentative and persuasion skills grew

exponentially for a kid of his age. When Joey asked his dad for help on a school project he was

struggling with because he could not ground himself in a solid argument, Naylor practically told

Joey that if he believes he is always right his arguments will be enhanced greatly (Reitman,

2005). Naylor already had to balance standing firm in his career and all that it stood for and
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being a good role model for Joey so he used the beauty of argument to grow their relationship. In

the corporate world, Naylor was the face of a company that was known for the danger it posed to

society because tobacco is the cause of a large number of deaths in the country. His

responsibility to the company is outlined in his job description to lobby for the consumption of

Big Tobacco’s products but many would argue that it is not ethical to advocate or work for a

company promoting the use of something known to lead to severe illness or death. As for his

social responsibility to the public and his son, it did not align with what Big Tobacco was asking

him to do and how he was representing the company on a larger level. Naylor struggled with

drawing a line between how far he would go to be the best lobbyist he could for Big Tobacco

and what kind of example he was setting for Joey as he tried to build their relationship. This was

at the root of many of Naylor’s ethical dilemmas throughout the film. His feelings about this

juggling act he had been performing with his career and Joey became clearer when he was before

the senator’s committee and said that if his son was 18 and wanted a cigarette then he would buy

him one (Reitman, 2005). Naylor allowed his career in the tobacco business to infiltrate his

judgement as a father which in turn affected how he handled his social responsibility to his son.

Another challenge Naylor faced in the film came with communication between him and

journalist Heather Holloway. Holloway interviews Naylor for a Washington paper and ends up

seducing him (Reitman, 2005). During their fling, Naylor reveals many details about his job

including the bribery, MOD squad, and Hollywood scheme which Holloway ends up using

against him in an exposé released in the midst of his kidnapping (Reitman, 2005). In this

situation, Naylor had no knowledge that Holloway was going to use the information he disclosed

to her in a very vulnerable state against him to gain profit. Ethically speaking, neither of their

decisions to become intimate with one another was a good idea as their relationship was based
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strictly on business and their professional lives. Holloway specifically was not ethical in the

slightest in her communication decisions. From turning a professional transaction into a sexual

relationship to abusing the intimacy of the relationship for her own professional gain as a

journalist, Holloway was not motivated by any ethically sound standards. Avoiding a

communication challenge as large as the one Naylor ran into with his developing relationship

with Heather Holloway would be very difficult. Once the two became as intimate as they did,

there was a level of trust created that interfered with Naylor’s judgement leading to him sharing

many secrets about his work and personal life.

If there were to be a ‘hero’ in the film, it would have to be Joey only because he was

what was guiding Nick Naylor to make more ethically sound decisions, or at least consider the

ethical choice. Ultimately it was because of Joey that Nick did not take back his job with Big

Tobacco, saving Nick from going down with the industry. The satirical plot of the film can be

capped off and wrapped into one with the single detail that there was not a single cigarette in any

scene. The entire time, Nick Naylor was advocating for the consumption of tobacco and making

business deals to incorporate them in more mainstream movies yet not one actor in this movie

was seen with one. The ethicality of many of the characters may be questioned but smoking is

not a factor that has to be taken into account for them personally. Thank You For Smoking

captures the irony of the promotion of tobacco for profit with just the right amount of sarcasm

and satire.
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Works Cited

Reitman, Jason, director. Thank You For Smoking. Fox Searchlight Pictures, 2005.