“Thank You For Smoking"

 Abby Higgins 

3/18/21

Media Law & Ethics 


During the movie “Thank You For Smoking” there are various examples of ethical questions raised in the film.  This movie is based on a man named Nick Naylor who works for a big tobacco company whose main job is to promote cigarettes which causes an uproar in society. However, Nick Naylor is also a caring father who tries to be a role model for his son while facing criticism from every one among him. Even though he wants the best for his son his position at the tobacco company affects his son in a very negative way.   Throughout this film, Naylor is constantly lying about how harmful tobacco is and is trying to make light of something that is clearly harmful. 

The main ethical question raised is based on the fact that he is supporting a company that causes health hazards throughout society. One of the main health o=concerns that cigarettes can cause is cancer  Although he knows all the negative effects cigarettes have he tries to persuade people into thinking cigarettes are not hazardous. This displays his lack of morals and ethical guidelines. 

Through the movie, we see examples of how persuasive he can be. In one part he and his son are discussing what flavor is better vanilla or chocolate. During this conversation, he tells his son that it never matters which one is better and that people should have the freedom to choose for themself. All though this is a less controversial topic than cigarettes it still displays his moral flexibility. 

Another part of this movie that exhibits a lack of ethical guideless is how they recruit people to work for them through a bribe. At the start of the movie, it is shown how they use sports cars and timeshares to lure people to work for them. They do this because working for a tobacco company isn't the most desirable job so by persuading them with gifts they can get more employees. 

Another person who displays ethical issues is journalist Heather Hollway. Heather is writing a story about Nick and does anything she can to get information on him. She even sleeps with him on many occasions just to find out more details about his life. After she gained all her information on him she released an article exposing everything he told her. Most people would think Heather would get in trouble for doing this, however, due to the fact that she was protected so she faced no consequences. 

Although this movie was made many years ago I can see how it relates to society especially kids in college. So many people get addicted to tobacco and tobacco companies are continuing to make numerous amounts of money. 

As said before these many examples show how this movie goes against what is ethically right. Starting off with Nick, he constantly goes against these guidelines by supporting a tobacco company.  Heather Hollway is also displaying this by manipulating Nick just to gain information on his company. All these examples show how this movie displays acts that are morally and ethically wrong. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Supreme Court/ Week 3

Image
  The Supreme Court of the United States also known as SCOTUS has the most power in the federal court. The supreme court was created in 1789, and throughout many years the supreme court has power over laws and it even has the ability to check over the Executive branch and the Legislative branch. The Executive branch follows forward with the laws, while the legislative branch creates the laws. One of the first acts that were signed was the Judiciary Act which was signed by George Washinton. The court first documented meeting took place on February 2, 1790. Through the Supreme Court, there are justices that are confirmed by the U.S senate. Throughout the year there has been a different number of seats that congress has set however, ever since in 1869 there have been 9 seats.  Some of the supreme court justices include John Marshal who was chief justice. Another important figure was Charles Evan Hudges who created freedom of speech and press. The last important person was Earl Warren who
Read more

Week 11

Image
 The premise of all these Ted Talks displays how invasive social media can be.  In today's modern world society faces backlash when it comes to social media. During these ted talks, we learned about the effects of social media and how different apps including Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat have changed the world. Companies including one called face.com have roughly 18 billion human faces which are all provided online. This mind-blowing statistic shows how invasive technology can be. Furthermore, police departments have the ability to gain confidential information on people. For example, location information can reveal a lot of sensitive information about someone and their whereabouts. There are even automatic license plate readers that keep tabs on every driver that passes by. This information can provide where you are located and also who you are with.  Other than social media in many cases, people can actually listen to your conversations over the phone due to wiretapping assi
Read more

Blog 7

Image
       The Diffusion Theory is a theory that explains how different ideas spread at a certain rate and how a certain item is communicated throughout time. One creation that has been made is the app Tik Tok. This is an app similar to vine where anyone in the world can upload short videos of themselves and post them on the internet. Before Quarantine the app was popular however, there was a major spike of views once Quarantine began making it one of the most popular apps. This is an app that the majority of society has downloaded and has pretty much taken over social media. People will spread Tik Toks by sharing the content with their friends and family. I remember the first time I ever heard of Tik Tok was through my friends. Although Tik Tok has been very popular over the last couple of months there are some downsides that come along with the app. Some of the Videos include racial slurs, bullying, and other harmful acts. This aspect of Tok Tik is the part of the app that is harmful to
Read more