Thank You for Smoking

Every day we hear people spinning the truth. They may be part of the government (from either party), a lawyer trying to make his client look better than he is, a mother trying to convince a toddler that the child really does want to eat broccoli, or an advertisement trying to sell their product. At times, we all pick and choose the facts we want to highlight while hiding the facts we don't want known.

In Thank You for Smoking Nick Naylor does this for a living. As a tobacco industry lobbyist, he appears on TV shows to say how nice the people are who manufacture these deadly products. He testifies before Congress that science is inconclusive about the health dangers of smoking. He doesn't lie about much of anything. He misdirects and confuses. He's good looking, smooth talking and slicker than silk pajamas on a snake.

He meets regularly with lobbyists from the alcohol and firearms industries who call themselves the MOD Squad (Merchants of Death). They compare which of them has the toughest job. Naylor ridicules them for the paltry numbers of death per day they represent.

Why would people do this kind of thing for a living? Naylor says it pays the mortgage.

Thank You for Smoking really isn't about smoking -- it assumes we all know the dangers. Rather, it's a broad satire based on a book by Christopher Buckley about the way truth is used and abused. On the PBS program Now, Buckley recounted asking a lobbyist who was obviously intelligent and knew of tobacco's harms why she did this job. It was she who gave him the line about paying the mortgage.

At a time when lobbying is under scrutiny because of serious abuses, this film seems timely, even though Naylor doesn't do any of the things that Jack Abramoff and others have been accused or convicted of. Lobbyists have an important role: they speak for their clients. Some represent businesses and others represent non-profits of various stripes. Conservative and liberal groups lobby. It is part of our right of free speech.

But as often happens, things are abused along the way. In Thank You for Smoking we see the way that the truth can be abused. Naylor and the MOD Squad do all they can to keep the real truth buried under their own version of truth or other issues that sidetrack attention.

Because it is satire, the film lacks a sense of reality -- everything is overblown. But though it doesn't seem real, it still has a reality that is shown humorously so that we can consider it seriously.

One of the implications is how important truth is to the various issues that we deal with as a society and as a nation. And yet, often we don't get the truth; we get spin. Politicians and media and special interests all try to get their version of the truth heard. The underlying assumption is that their version is more important than other versions. But society as a whole suffers from all this twisting of the truth.

Another implication is the question of what we are willing to do to pay the mortgage. Naylor tries to protect and expand tobacco's place in American life so he can pay a mortgage. Heather Holloway, a reporter writing a story on Naylor, will do absolutely anything to get the information she needs. She has a mortgage too.

Lots of people have mortgages. I have one. What is it we are willing to do to pay that mortgage? Will we work for a company that harms the environment? Will we spin things at our job so we look good at the expense of someone else so our job is more secure? Will we say what our boss wants even if we disagree?

This is not a liberal or anti-business view of things. It pokes fun at everyone. This is an equal opportunity offender (a good thing in satire). We laugh when those we don't like are being sent up. We cringe when our own ox is gored, but it's because we see a bit of truth in what is said about us. And seeing the truth is what this film is all about.