Rhetorical Analysis: Exploring Persuasion in 'Thank You for Smoking'

This document provides a rhetorical analysis of the film 'Thank You for Smoking,' focusing on the character of Nick Naylor and his use of persuasive techniques. The introduction establishes the film's genre as dark comedy and introduces Naylor as a lobbyist for the tobacco industry, known for his ability to defend controversial positions. The body paragraph delves into a specific scene where Naylor argues against warning labels on cigarette packets, highlighting his use of ethos, pathos, logos, and rhetorical fallacies. The analysis examines how Naylor manipulates rhetoric to defend his position, even when it contradicts his personal beliefs. The assignment draws on academic sources to support its claims, offering a detailed examination of the film's persuasive strategies and the ethical implications of Naylor's arguments.

Introduction
The film Thank You for Smoking, falls under the genre of Dark Comedy which takes a
serious topic and makes it normal through satire. It is a movie adaptation of the book by
Christopher Buckley having the same title. The lead character of the movie, Nick Naylor
(Aaron Eckhart) works as a lobbyist for the American Tobacco Industry. To be more specific,
he is in the post of vice-president of The Academy of Tobacco Studies and because of his
unending ability of defending an industry which “kills 1200 people in a day”, he is
proclaimed as the “sultan of spin” (rsmith14eportfolio.wordpress.com, 2009). Nick is a born
competitor and obtains an uncanny understanding of human nature along with a vast arsenal
of rhetorical tricks. Because of this, despite being always on the wrong side of the argument,
Nick is “never wrong”. Defending a cigarette company while setting a good example and
being a role model for his son is the major challenge of his life. Despite being intelligent and
charming, Nick is often too slick for his own good. Nick Naylor, being a master manipulator,
can talk anyone into anything and although he doesn't take himself too seriously, he does
have a specific set of principles based on the ideas of freedom and relativity. He believes that
truth is an opinion which people manipulate in order to fulfil his or her agenda. The movie
along with the character revolves around a very controversial subject related to the tobacco
industry and business.
Body Paragraph
The first prominent example of rhetoric in the character of Nick Naylor can be found
in the scene where he delivers an argument against putting up an image of the skull and
crossbones on all the packets of a cigarette (rsmith14eportfolio.wordpress.com, 2009). As
this happens during a state hearing before the committee and the senator, Nick's audience
includes the committee along with his young son. To Nick, it doesn't matter if it goes against
his beliefs or not, yet he keeps defending a controversial idea with the help of controversial
support and evidence. In this sequence, Nick's morality has been called into question as in his
defence pathos, ethos, logos and the rhetorical fallacies are ever present during this sequence.
The main topic of Naylor's argument was based on the personal decision of a man. He argued
that the person buying the cigarette already knows the harmfulness of it and hence it is not
necessary to put up a danger sign (Holliday, Arnott, Preshaw & Bauld, 2018). When asked
whether he would let his child smoke Nick, in a passionate monologue, replied that if his son
wants to smoke, he will purchase his son the first packet of cigarette. Apart from the logical
fallacies, the sequence was filled with rhetorical techniques. The argument, apart from being

mostly sound, had all the major examples of rhetoric, pathos, ethos, kairos and logos. A
conventionally controversial topic like tobacco would have been hard to argue without
rhetorical techniques. Nay, the rhetorical techniques used by him is exactly what made Nick
successful in an extremely controversial industry like the tobacco industry.

References
Holliday, R., Arnott, D., Preshaw, P. M., & Bauld, L. (2018). Smoking: Developing the
evidence base. British dental journal, 224(1), 3.
rsmith14eportfolio.wordpress.com (2009) Rhetorical Analysis: Thank You for Smoking
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