Points of Praxis

My Blog Reflects on Visual Rhetorical Theory and Disability Rhetoric and their Connections to Classical and Contemporary Rhetorical Theory

I was tipped off by a good friend of mine, Brandon, that I had to rent the movie Thank You for Smoking.  As the ubber-movie snob, I have come to regard Brandon's recommendations as worthwhile, especially considering the cinematic dog-poo most of my other friends recommend (sorry, Kim and Rick but Click is neither funny nor original).  And, while watching Thank You for Smoking, I was amazed by this rhetorical gem of a movie.

In the satrical comedy, director and screenwriter Jason Reitman (son of Ivan Reitman) presents audiences with a look into the hidden world of tobacco lobbying.  Based on the novel by Christopher Buckley, the movie stars Aaron Eckhart as Nick Naylor, a tobacco lobbyist who works to promote tobacco consumption to a health-conscious consumer who has become all to aware of the health problems associated with smoking.  Naylor, who loves his job as a lobbyist as much as he loves his son, Joey (played by Cameron Bright), manipulates his opponents' arguments with a rhetorical ease that would make even the most eloquent wordsmiths blush.  (As Dr. Lou Thompson remarked to me, Naylor's conversations with his son--the wise, older man leading the young pupil to newfound wisdom on morality and ethics--are reminiscent of Socrates dialogues with Phaedrus.)  Naylor struggles throughout the movie to maintain his lack of morality while remaining a role model for his son.  As Naylor works with a movie executive to help Hollywood sell the message that "smoking is cool," his ruthless tactics and his "moral flexibility" is exposed to the world by Washington reporter Heather Holloway (played by Katie Holmes) .

More specifically, though, Naylor uses logic and rhetoric to defeat his opponents and present them as moral extremists, fascist power mongers, or tragic victims.  Naylor, as a moral relativist, is described by his opponents as a "mass murderer, blood sucker, pimp, profiteer and [...] yuppie Mephistopheles" who unscrupulously sells his rhetorical skills in order to "pay the mortgage."  If Socrates or Plato were alive today, they would call Naylor a Sophist.  After all, Naylor exhibits all of the Sophistic characteristics Plato abhored; specifically, Naylor's primary concern isn't with using his rhetorical or logical abilities to lead audiences toward a greater understanding of the "Truth." 

Rather, Naylor believes that "the beauty of argument [is] if you argue correctly, you're never wrong."  Even when faced with an angry audience and "Cancer Boy" or his son's sixth grade class, Naylor still manages to win his opponents over by playing to their sense of individualism, patriotism, and narcissism.  Both Naylor and Plato's Sophists use oral discourse to "speak against every one and on every question in such a way as to win over the votes of the multitude, practically in any matter he [sic] may choose to take up" (Plato, Gorgias 67). 

After all, Naylor, like Plato's Sophists, were concerned with achieving a greater understanding of the universe or themselves; rather, both were concerned with winning an argument at all costs, regardless of the means or results:  "There is no need to know the truth of the actual matters, but one merely needs to have discovered some device of persuasion which will make one appear to those who do not know to know better than those who know" (Plato, Gorgias 68).

Naylor's rhetorical abilities are never lost on an health-conscious society that considers him the spawn of Satan; instead, he illustrates the lengths the tobacco industry will go to to sell a product that is "cool, available, and addictive."  As one tobacco executive notes, "The job is almost done for us." 

Plato. Gorgias.  The Rhetorical Tradition.  Eds. Patricia Bizzell and Bruce Herzberg.  1st ed.  New York:  Bedford Press.  1991.

Thank You for Smoking.  Dir. Jason Reitman.  2005. (2005). 

posted by: rgregory at 15:51 | link | comments (10) |

Comments:

#1  11 October 2006 - 03:31

 

I'm really glad you liked this one. All I could think of was Nick as just the kind of Sophist that Socrates detested, as you noted. I see a lot of potential in this film for discussing Platonic views on rhetoric with students.

Did you notice that they never showed Nick's surname until well into the movie, when the spelling was revealed to be "Naylor"? The whole time, I kept hearing "nailer," appropriate for someone who continually nails his opponents rhetorically to the wall.

Maybe there was something to that.

Mo'nonymous

#2  20 October 2006 - 22:41

 

Thanks for recommending it.

I could also see the movie as illustrating a Platonic attempt to lead rhetors to "the Truth" through dialectic. After all, Reitmann never comes out and tells his audience, "You shouldn't smoke. Smoking is bad for you. The tobacco lobbyists are lying, two-face, scumsuckers who'll stop at nothing to earn a buck." Instead, audiences watch Naylor and his MOD squad do just that... And, audiences then come to their own realizations of the "Truth." Fits nicely with those anti-smoking ads, huh?

rgregory

#3  29 October 2006 - 04:09

 

Alright, I am absolutely going to see this movie now. (I was only "certainly" going to see it before...). It'll definitely be interesting to see Rhetoric (capital r) in action. And who knows, if I can get away with it, I'll show it to my fishie comp class.

(By the way, sorry for being so woefully inept at keeping up with this blog. damn me all to hell.)

-- A loyal smoker.

Mo'nonymous

#4  29 October 2006 - 15:18

 

It's okay. I forgive you--for now, Chris.

You'll enjoy the movie very much. Naylor is a very, very likable character and the movie's just so damn smart it hurts.

You're going to love the scenes with the Merchants of Death--or MOD Squad. It's so academia to sit around and argue who's profession is more valuable to society, in general. "No, sociology is more important than psychology. No, alcohol kills more than tobacco."

You'll love it...
rdg

Mo'nonymous

#5  08 November 2006 - 19:54

 

Okay, so I've seen the movie, and I'm afraid that I'm going to have to disagree with you. Specifically, that is, with your claim that Nick Naylor is a "moral relativist." To be perfectly honest, I didn't see him purely in this light. Instead, as I watched the movie, expecting to see a "struggle ... to maintain his lack of morality," what I really saw was a man who comes to a realization that he is committed to people actually thinking for themselves. Now, there certainly was a struggle there, and Naylor is certainly "morally flexible," but I don't think that this translates to relativity per se. Rather, I saw a realist who doesn't really think that we can blame other people for our own damned problems. That we should get out and do a little bit of homework before agreeing with whatever the slick sentator from Wisconsin (?) says.

Sophist he may be, but he also, be the end of the film, recognizes that he does want to do something worth a little bit more than just "pay[ing] the mortgage."

Mo'nonymous

#6  08 November 2006 - 23:17

 

But, as someone who's just trying to "pay the mortgage," his moral compass is for sale to the highest bidder. He wants his audience to think for themselves, only as long as it fits his agenda.

It's interesting that you would say that he is committed to people actually thinking for themselves because I don't that as a committment as it is a gimick. That's his rhetorical appeal to get people to take his side.

And, the man knows his audience. He's appealing to the Puritan-American ideology of self-control, self-reliance, and independence. "If you think for yourself, you'll decide on your own whether you wish to smoke or not."

However, he's not presenting both sides of the issue. He's only presenting his own perspective--in that regard, if were going back to the discussion of classical rhetoric, Naylor isn't committed to helping his audience find the "Truth." I believe if he were really committed to "freedom of thought," he wouldn't have such an obvious agenda. He's trying to sell smoking by wrapping it up in a nice "independent thinking" wrapper.

Intersting discussion, Chris, either way. I have to wonder whether your own position on the movie and Naylor might be a reflection of a "happy, unrepentant smoker"?

Mo'nonymous

#7  09 November 2006 - 03:32

 

Good point, my friend. Good point.

-- A Happy and Wholly Unrepentant Smoker of Fine Tobaccos.

Mo'nonymous

#8  30 November 2006 - 21:15

 

Maybe it's too late to join in this discussion, but I'm working on a rhetorical analysis of this film and am interested in your comments. Of course when can see Nick as a "bad" Sophist, doing anything to win the argument, but couldn't we also classify him as a legalist? His rhetoric sets out to secure acquiescence based on free choice, through persuasion. As someone mentioned above, he uses this gimick of free choice to his agenda, but nonetheless, he isn't forcing cigarettes into peoples hands. He works as a sort of minister to and for Big Tobacco, even takes a back seat to his boss when he takes credit for Nick's ideas- just as Han Fei Tzu might have done ministering to a ruler. Isn't legalism basically spin? Nick is the "Sultan of Spin" and I'd definately want him on my side in court or politics. The man has a way with words. Quintilian is rolling over in his grave.
-Another Wholly Unrepentant Smoker of Fine Tobaccos (and student of early rhetorical theory)

Mo'nonymous

#9  30 November 2006 - 21:43

 

I'm not completely knowledgable on the legalist (okay, I just wiki'ed it), but couldn't one argue that Nader is the anti-legalist? Legalism left little room (from what I *just* read) for dissent. Follow the law or die. Period. And, Nader does offer choice. You're right; he doesn't force anyone to puff away.

If I have legalism wrong (which is possible), then I think you make a convincing argument. Nader is just spinning tobacco. He's relying on his own rhetorical skills to persuade his audience and he's relying on appeals to logos, concealed as pathos.

"Smoke or don't smoke because *you* want to. Not because someone told you (not) to."

It seems on the surface to be a pathos appeal based on the audience's values of self-determinism and freedom of choice. (So, yes, Nader is appealing to his audience's desires to choose for themselves.)

However, Nader's really employing an enthymeme:

Audience:
I value 'freedom of choice.'
Therefore, I will smoke by exercising that right.

The middle part that missing:
I value 'freedom of choice.'
I have been told I shouldn't smoke and have, thereby, been robbed of my freedom to choose whether I wish to smoke or not.
I will smoke in order to exercise that right to choose.

Perhaps, I'm mistaken but doesn't "legalism" resort to totalitarianism--which would be contrary to freedom of choice?

Rochelle

rgregory

#10  02 December 2006 - 20:16

 

Legalism calls for equality under the law. Naylor points out that it is the law that everyone deserves a fair defense. (Even multi-million dollar corporations.)
I guess the most legalist aspect of Naylor that I had in mind was the idea of "Shu"- the method, tactic, art of using secrets and spin to maintain control. It was also the legalist minister's job to promote their emperor, get them ahead, which is what Nick does for his bosses and their cigarettes.
Also, when Nick's son asks him why America government is the best cites a law- our endless appeals system.
Han Fei Tzu who wrote on legalsim emphasized the study of human motivation, the interrelationships of motives and circumstances. The goal was power, and order of the state. I would say that Nick is an expert in the area of human motivation and context, expert enough to spin just about anything to win an argument. Legalism was the illusion of a common goal, but underneath was to maintain power. It thrived on fear, which I think Senator Finnester uses quite well in trying to paste poison symbols on all cigarette packs. Naylor uses the fear of losing our right as individuals to chose. Is all this rhetoric really for the good of the people, or was it simply a struggle for power?

Mo'nonymous

Comments: