Adam,
Leaving aside the fact that I’m going to use the above quote “I’m…a Marxist” against you during our head-to-head run for office, I dig what you have to say about Thank You for Smoking’s equal-opportunity brand of cynicism. Like you, I appreciate that the movie tries to take on the whole corporate-political-media axis of lie-slinging and self-promotion. While you talked about the movie’s cynicism from a systemic angle, I want to consider it from the perspective of its makers.
Christopher Buckley (L) and Jason Reitman (R)
It’s interesting to note that Thank You for Smoking is the product of two second-generation cultural power players whose satiric sensibilities seem to come directly out of their proximity to the worlds of money and influence: book author Christopher Buckley (son of conservative commentator William F.) and screen adaptor/director Jason Reitman (son of Ghostbusters director Ivan). Given his conservative pedigree, it’s a little odd that someone like Buckley would write a novel that so thoroughly skewers both business and politics. Then again, he would probably know better than most how powerful men talk and think, would know what it looks like when corporate interests infiltrate the political system.
So I think you’re right that many of the most astute parts of Thank You for Smoking are its portrayals of characters like the Captain, characterizations that are lifted straight out of the book. “I was in Korea shooting Chinese in 1952,” the Captain, an aging tobacco baron, reflects in one scene. “Today they’re our best customers. Next time we won’t have to shoot so many of them, will we?” It’s a perfect bit of dialogue for a character whose business savvy compels him to be fickle and short-sighted in spite of the tremendous weight of his experience.
Where the movie manages to improve on the book is where it journeys onto Jason Reitman’s home turf. Unlike Buckley, Reitman didn’t grow up in the shadow of Washington; he grew up a film set brat. It makes sense that some of the sharpest satire in the movie is focused in the Hollywood offices where Nick Naylor goes to solicit an executive (played by Rob Lowe) for help in maximizing cigarettes’ positive representation in media. Here Reitman’s observations of a uniquely L.A. combination of maniacal pragmatism and preening affectation take on a charge and a specificity that the rest of the film somewhat lacks. In terms of dialogue, characterization, pacing, and cultural allusion, these scenes are also a distinct step up from the book.
“Cigarettes in space?” Reitman has Naylor ask about one product placement idea. “But wouldn’t they blow up in an all-oxygen environment?” “Probably,” the Hollywood exec concedes, “but it’s an easy fix. One line of dialogue: ‘Thank God we invented the…you know, whatever device.’” Later, Naylor takes a call from the executive who, in my favorite comic reveal, is shown to be standing in his home, headset on, wearing a full-blown kimono.
But now to return to the subject of cynicism, particularly in view of the movie’s ending. If you look at Reitman’s other projects (Juno, Up in the Air, Young Adult), I think you can see a recurring tension between cynicism and idealism about human nature. There’s Juno, whose pregnancy variously brings out either the selfishness or the kindness of those around her. There’s Up in the Air’s pragmatic-to-a-fault corporate downsizer, whose career hinges on the misfortune of others, but who is still capable of making himself vulnerable to and being betrayed by love. And there’s the ex-beauty queen in Young Adult whose own emotional stuntedness comes into contact with the hard-won wisdom of a disabled former classmate.
Nick Naylor shares with all these protagonists a curious mix of acuity and guilelessness. He’s talking a senate committee under the table one minute, falling for Katie Holmes’s transparently predatory news reporter another minute. Ultimately, I disagree with you that Thank You for Smoking’s ending comes out of the same pure cynicism that the movie starts out with. I tend to believe that the ending, a departure from the book, arises out of the impulse to end on a faint note of redemption.
In summary, the main lesson I take from this movie: I don’t have to prove I’m right; I just have to prove you’re wrong/a Marxist (paraphrased).
Love,
Victoria
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