Thankyou For Smoking Monologue

Composers actively manipulate the perspectives and representations of their characters and events in order to influence the opinions of their audience. In Shakespeare’s 1599 tragic play Julius Caesar, Shakespeare challenges the audience’s perception of Caesar and the conspirators, in order to confuse the concepts of good and evil. Likewise, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, in his beat poem “Two Scavengers in a Truck, Two Beautiful People in a Mercedes” (1962), challenges the audience’s perception of democracy and equality. Finally, in the 2005 film Thankyou for Smoking, directed by Jason Reitman, the social stigma of smoking and cigarettes is highlighted by the composer, urging the audience to contemplate its acceptability. The composers all subtly challenge established people, events and situations by presenting two
Nick Naylor is described as having a “bachelor in kicking ass,” and accompanying this metaphor is the non-diegetic sound of a machine gun, symbolising the power and destruction of his PR spin on tobacco. Reitman satires the social perception on cigarettes; “they’re cool … our job’s practically done for us” and provides the irony of the lobby groups; the acronym “SAFETY” aims for increased gun rights. Reitman presents Naylor as having the near impossible task of convincing the public that cigarettes are okay, and using this characterisation to stress the moral incoherence that is associated with his job. As Reitman ironically belittles Naylor, so too does Antony use irony; “Brutus is an honourable man” to undermine the reasoning behind the assassination. The composers have utilised their characters to present conflicting perspectives, be it on Caesar’s assassination or the tobacco industry, to show that they are negative situations, and thus effectively manipulate the audience’s perspectives on