Rhetoric in Thank You For Smoking

In Jason Reitman’s film, Thank You For Smoking, Aaron Eckhardt plays the character of Nick Naylor who is a spokesperson for “Big Tobacco” or more specifically a tobacco company named Winston-Salem. He describes his job characteristics in the film as an attempt to create a positive image within the media of “Big Tobacco” in the face of so many dissenting claims. The name given to this line of work is lobbying.

In this opening scene of the film, Nick Naylor is answering questions and putting forth arguments while being interviewed on a television panel. The odds are always overwhelmingly against him because of the immoral consequences that result from a company that he represents. The panel that he is on consists of the president of Mothers Against Smoking, the chairwoman of The Lung Association, the top aide of Health and Human Services, and a young kid diagnosed with cancer. This creates a comical effect in the film and highlights the ever surmounting odds that Nick Naylor has to fight or “argue” against. Now. The fact that Mr. Naylor is working for a company’s interests and that these interests revolve around public opinion creates a negative impact on the rhetoric of his “argument”.  The rhetoric that results from this is based on public reception rather than the sake of an actual argument, which is to seek truth. Naylor manages to manipulate the public perception on him from spitting at the sight of him with booing echoing in the background to applause and praise. In this main excerpt from the clip, it shows how this is accomplished.

Naylor - how on earth would Big Tobacco profit off of the loss of this young man? 
            Now, I hate to think in such callous terms, 
            but, if anything, we'd be losing a customer. 
            It's not only our hope, it's in our best interest 
            to keep Robin alive and smoking. 

Ron Goodes - That's ludicrous. - 

Naylor - Let me tell you something, 

            Joan, and please, let me share something 
            with the fine, concerned people in the audience today. 
            The Ron Goodes of this world... 
            want the Robin Willigers to die. 
            You know why? 
            So that their budgets will go up. 
            This is nothing less than trafficking in human misery, 
            and you, sir, ought to be ashamed of yourself. 

            I ought to be ashamed of myself? 
            As a matter of fact, we're about to launch... 
            a $50 million campaign aimed at persuading kids not to smoke. 

            Because I think that we can all agree that there is nothing more important 
            than America's children.

This response from Nick Naylor is filled with contradiction and manipulation. The actual argument that is suggested is completely overlooked and is replaced by condemning his opposition on the panel. Naylor manages to create a contrast of him and the “Top Aide” figure. Naylor portrays himself as a good figure that contributes “50 million dollars” to teenage smoking prevention while the top aide is portrayed as a “trafficker of human misery”. Naylor evades the truth by creating an intense appeal to his ethos. The audience narrowly sees Naylor and his character and fails to see the lack of a debate. The only way to combat being easily led on by arguments such as Naylor’s, is to be aware of the components of rhetoric. If the audience of this television show ever took a LA101H class their acceptance of the argument may not have been achieved. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w8OhiLU7cU

This interview between the geneticist and philosopher Richard Dawkins and the political commentator Bill O'reilly highlights the benefits of using rhetoric and the negative aspects of the lack of rhetoric within a debate. The debate revolves over the question of the existence of the Western idea of a God, with Dawkins taking an atheistic stance and O’reilly taking a theistic stance. Dawkins embodies the ultimate logical thinker while reinforcing his sound arguments continually throughout the interview. On the other hand, O'reilly seems to view the interview with an ad hominenperspective in which the two are opponents. Throughout the interview, O'reilly's position is repeatedly refuted by Dawkins but the interviewer mainly sees Dawkin's arguments as an attack on his personal character rather than the objective propulsion of a dynamic argument. O'reilly seems to maintain this mode of thinking over the course of the whole interview. This mode of thinking reveals the lack of a sense of positive rhetoric in which truth is discussed with an open mind and answers are sought. Rather, this causes the debate to become more competitive which causes the two men to become more detached from one another and a progressive end is not achieved. In terms of ethos, pathos, and logos Dawkins seems to have achieved all three aspects of qualitative rhetoric while O’reilly falls short.

At one point early on, the dialogue plays out like this:

O’REILLY: I'm sticking with Judeo-Christian philosophy and my religion of Roman Catholicism, because it helps me as a person -

DAWKINS: Ah, that's different. If it helps you that's great. That doesn't mean it's true.

O'REILLY: Well, it's true for me. See, I believe -

DAWKINS: You mean true for you is different from true for anybody else?

O'REILLY: Yeah, absolutely -

DAWKINS: It's got to be either true or not true.

O'REILLY: No, no. I can't prove to you that Jesus is God, so that truth is mine and mine alone, but you can't prove to me that Jesus is not. So you have to stay in your little -

DAWKINS: You can't prove that Zeus is not. You can't prove that Apollo is not.

O'REILLY: I saw Apollo, man, he was down there and he was not looking good.

This short dialogue reveals how significant the difference in argumentative style is between the two. O’reilly seems to dance around the questions and statements given by Dawkins while only challenging his “opponent” rather than his own conceptions of truth. If people in society eliminated this antiquated media culture influence on debates, then the world would become more progressive and the truth would be sought more often and more openly. This interview is an example of what humanity needs to distance itself from and learn from in order to have any hope of real progress.

Bill O’reilly sucks.