Thank you for smoking: film analysis and persuasion techniques

¶ … Smoking

From the beginning of time man has been searching for means through which pleasure could be obtained regardless of the counter effects that the respective means brought along. Drugs as tobacco, heroin, alcohol and several others have been initially produced by man mainly for recreational reasons, but most of them have proved to be harmful for the body. In response to the damaging effects that drugs had, people had conducted numerous anti-drug campaigns.

Thank you for smoking" is a motion picture inspired by Christopher Buckley's novel which brings into the spotlight the life of a man that promotes tobacco. The movie in its essence presents actor Aaraon Eckhart, an excellent spokesman, while going through hell in order to make Americans believe that smoking is not dangerous for the human body.

The remarkable thing about the film is that one can easily observe people as being extremely receptive to pro-smoking propaganda, even if everyone knows the damaging effects tobacco has. Eckhart originally portrays tobacco as not posing any risks for its users. Thus, he is presenting it as it would presumably be ok for children to smoke. Along with Eckhart, the movie presents an alcohol merchandiser and a gun trafficker and the three of them as a team fighting about who sells the most dangerous article. Eckhart proves to be scruples and able to use almost any method to create a good image for tobacco in the U.S.