One of the best movies I watched this past year was Thank You for Smoking. It is a really fun satirical comedy about Big Tobacco. In brief, the movie is about a lobbyist for the tobacco industry whose job is to promote cigareete smoking in a time when the health problems related to cigarettes are obvious to most people. Though the movie is about the cigarette industry, I think the message of the movie generalizes to many other industries. It does a good job of presenting how business, media, and government interact to influence the choices consumers make (without even realizing it). Of course, given that research studies show that attraction to smoking at a young age is influenced by messages coming from the media, including movies, has tremendous health, business, and public policy implications, which we usually tend to ignore or overlook.
John Campea does a really great job of reviewing the movie. His comments are available on Thank You for Smoking on his movie blog by clicking here.
