| Friday, April 7, 2006 |
14:05 - I do not think it means what you think it means
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The trailers for this are describing it as—ahem—"a deliciously politically-incorrect satire". Or words to that effect.
'Scuse me? What on earth is politically incorrect about whaling on tobacco lobbyists?
Making an anti-smoking movie is just about the most politically correct thing you can do in this day and age. What with all those obnoxious "Truth" ads all over TV, which get away with purveying their message even when it's sloppy and illogical, and with every show from The Simpsons to Family Guy checking in with their righteous anti-smoking crusade episodes, where the hell is the risk in picking on the tobacco industry?
The last time I was in Europe, everyone smoked like chimneys. My group's tour guide at the Summer Palace in St. Petersburg constantly gesticulated with a lit cigarette; as I walked past, she was waving her hand around to show some building to some other tourists, and her cigarette hit my hand and burned it. Just imagine a tour guide smoking while on the job in America. Can you? Here at home, there's nary a positive portrayal of cigarettes left on TV, let alone advertisements. Billboards, for all they're maligned for, are abstract and surrealist and sure as hell don't convey any particular message to me about smoking being cool. The few people at my company who smoke have to slink out to the back door several times a day, and endure the contemptuous glares of people walking past to and from the building. I don't think I know more than one or two people who smoke, and those who do do so furtively, in shame, alone out on the porch. Boy, nothing says "cool" like having to shiver outside the sliding doors while all your friends talk and laugh inside in front of the TV.
This is Hollywood's new "bravery", then: picking on people that everyone already hates.
And in order to sell it, as though they need to win any more hearts and minds, they co-opt terms like "politically incorrect"—which were coined to describe points of view that differ from the prevailing self-censorship rules that infest our entertainment and social discourse—and pretend that it applies to the party line. They know that "political correctness" has negative connotations, slavishly though people follow its dictates, so they solve that little problem by pretending that what they're doing is really political incorrectness. Which everyone loves because it's "subversive".
For the record, this is what would be "politically incorrect". Though I'm sure the makers of Thank You For Smoking would beg to differ. Hey, then they'd be subversive.
UPDATE: Several have e-mailed to point out that the book on which this movie is based is not an anti-smoking tract, but quite the opposite—a pro-individualism/do-what-you-want message from Chris Buckley, son of William F.
Well, the trailers sure are misleading, then. But maybe that's just so they can be really subversive...
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Brian Tiemann
