Thamk You for Smoking

Thank You for Smoking has a comical outlook on the way freedom of speech allows us to stretch, bend, and exaggerate the truth in order to persuade. The movie uses the cigarette industry to demonstrate how people have learned how to convince others to do anything, and also shows the other side of the coin, with those people that will believe anything with a little persuasion. Now the movie may be a little exaggerated in the idea that people are so influenced. However, the smoking industry is a very good example of how we stretch the truth to make something seem better then it actually is. The trick to cigarettes and other products are if they are liked by consumers it does not take much talk to make the buyer want it. Everyone knows the affects of cigarettes in today's society, however with a little help from the art of sales, people will continue smoking until they are dead. This was best shown in the movie when Nick was almost killed due to all the nicotine that was put in his body from the patches. As soon as he was able to talk the first thing he did was come out and tells everyone that smoking saved his life. We are all smarter then that we are in a time period where we know smoking can not be good for you, but his story did prove he was saved. So if another smoker were to be attacked by hundreds of nicotine patches then he would be much better off then the healthy man walking down the street. A ridiculous idea, however, an exception to a rule and we are all over it as if it proves it is alright to smoke. This is how we deal with problems or addictions we play it off like it isn't that bad or we say this will be the last one, we know better, we just choose to ignore it until it has affected us to the point where we can't do anything about it. That is what the movie is trying to prove and that is why his "corporation" is so successful it is not hard to persuade people to do stupid things, but that does not mean unnecessary. Without Nick Naylor people would not...