Movie Reflection: "Thank You for Smoking"

 "Thank You for Smoking" presents an interesting insight into the world of vice advertising, both the positives and the negatives. There is a great amount of money to be made, that cannot be denied. And in essence, all you're really doing as the advertiser is letting the people know they have the option to use your product, right?

I would argue that there is more to it than that!

To most of us, it is entirely obvious that cigarettes are harmful to your lungs or that alcohol degrades your liver. But just because those are facts that are known broadly across society to be true does not mean that there aren't people who don't know that information! 

The film does an excellent job of making the audience root for the protagonist, despite also making it quite clear that the product he is selling kills many, many people. I commend the filmmakers for their skill, but I also scorn them for continuing to influence people to ignore the dangers of addictive products!

By making an audience sympathetic for a major vice advertiser, you encourage them to forgive some of the detriments of the product, even if they are explicitly mentioned in the same film. 

Essentially, the film functions as a vice advertisement itself, using the same tactics to manipulate the audience that Nick Naylor uses throughout the movie. It's genius! And absurdly unethical!!

Don't misunderstand me, however, as I do actually agree with the final argument that is made in the film. People should have the right to choose to consume products, even if they know they are harmful to themselves. 

But that absolutely does not give a pass to advertisers to ignore the dangers of the products they sell, in fact I believe that the negative effects of a product should be just a prominently marketed as the benefits!

That belief doesn't come from a place of ignorance on my end, it comes from my understanding of ignorance in others. Multitudes of people do not have the knowledge necessary to make an informed decision about using addictive products. 

And advertisements are proven to have an incredible amount of power of the decisions that people make, especially those that have less access to enlighten themselves.

Nothing could convince me to agree with the sentiments in the film or to participate in vice advertising myself, not as it exists now. Because I firmly feel that if advertisements of harmful products cannot fully encompass the benefits and detriments of the product, in a way that everyone can truly comprehend, then they aren't advertisements at all... 

They're misguidance, manipulation, and murderous!!

EOTO: Motion Pictures

 

The history and impact of motion pictures are difficult to define for certain, as there are many conflicting accounts of who actually invented something first and what exactly the consequences of that invention were. However, through a number of sources, like this article from Britannica, I have landed on my personal concensus on the matter.

In 1891, Thomas Edison is credited with the creation of the kinetoscope, which is considered the first real motion picture camera. His interest in creating such a device came as a result of Eadward Muybridge, or rather Edison's refusal to partner with Muybridge to make said device. 

However, it was not actually Thomas Edison who worked on inventing the kinetoscope! It was one of his laboratory assistants at the time, William Kennedy Laurie Dickson. Dickson spent several years working on developing the kinetoscope on the behalf of Edison, but Edison is touted as the inventor merely because he was the one who owned the rights to it, since it was created in his lab.

Regardless, the kinetoscope was released to the public and it started to change the world of motion pictures. This was thanks to the fact that the kinetoscope not only could capture motion pictures, but could play them back for someone to watch! As such, kinetoscopes began appearing across the country, where anyone could pay a coin to watch a film through the peep hole on the device.

(Although some of Edison's films were distasteful to the public and resulted in the first batch of censorship for the new medium.)

While this achievement is certainly notable in the history of motion pictures, it is just the beginning of what created film as we know it today! Four years after the unveiling of the kinetoscope, in 1895, the Lumiere Brothers created the Cinematographe. Which is considered to be the first real projector for motion pictures.

Edison believed that devoloping a device that could project film for a large audience to view at once would ultimately cost him money in the long run, so he abandoned any investment in doing so. Unfortunately for him, the Lumiere Brothers seized this opportunity and it changed the world of motion pictures once again!

With a reliable way to play motion pictures for a large audience, instead of one at a time, the art form began to boom! People would fill every seat in the audience to watch a film together, further increasing the popularity of motion pictures. But not only did it create a boom in the consumer market, it also pushed other inventors to get back into the game and improve upon the technology further. 

From that point onward a series of devices were created, ultimately leading us to the equipment we know today. Not only that, but so began the era of film, wherein culture was en
tirely reshaped to include going to the movies. And while the positives of that cultural shift are undeniable, the negatives cannot be dismissed either, as large audience could now be influenced to think or feel a certain way on a wider scale than ever before!

In the end though, I must say, I am incredibly grateful for the existence of motion pictures, and I feel that most would agree with that sentiment. Wouldn't you?