Thank You for Smoking- Ethical Dilemma

Thank you for smoking is a movie that revolves around the character, Nick Naylor. He is the chief spokesperson and lobbyist for the Academy of Tobacco Studies. His job puts him in a very difficult situation considering he has to endorse a product that is well known for causing serious health issues. A heavy consumer in this industry is teen smoking which is very unethical for him to be promoting. However, like he says multiple times in the movie “it pays the mortgage”. Naylor has a 12 year old son that is interested in what his dad does for work which puts him in a major conflict knowing what being a role model for his son means to him.

Naylor’s group of friends “the MOD squad” (merchants of death) refers to his two friends who are in similar positions he is in with the firearms industry as well as the alcohol industry. These 3 industries account for a massive amount of deaths each year. All of them work in a tough situation considering there is so much negative connotation latched on to all three industries. Their job to promote them as positives play a role into their personal lives as they can be looked at differently by their peers.

We see examples of this in other places such as the industry of violent tv shows and video games being promoted and accessible for children and teenagers. There has been proven to be a direct correlation between the exposure of violence in the media to violence and aggression in these kids' lives. There is no coincidence that we are at an all time peak of first person shooter games out there being advertised nonstop to kids, meanwhile we are constantly wondering how to stop mass shootings from happening around this country. There are obviously other variables involved, but this seems to be a key component when you break down these situations that have been growing over the past 10-15 years.

Nick Naylor's way of spinning arguments in a way to protect the tobacco industry was very interesting. A scene that stuck out to me was the talk show where Nick was joined by a teenage cancer patient, and other guests such as a doctor and advocates for ways to prohibit smoking for teens. In the beginning of the talk show it was evident that the whole audience looked at him as the face of why teens were getting cancer from smoking. After he was able to take over the show with his words and spin it to where he basically said that these non smoking advocates want these kids to die because when they do their budgets will go up. Naylor then mentioned a 50 million dollar campaign to persuade kids not to smoke. He clearly deflected the issue at hand that the tobacco industry had already dug a hole within the health world. I personally think there is correlation between that scene and what is going on with the issue of mass shootings and the deflection of real issues.