Response to Thank You for Smoking Opening Scene

Response to Thank You for Smoking Opening Scene

Due Friday by 11:59pm

Analyze the use of fallacies in the opening scene of Thank You for Smoking (where Nick Naylor is on the Jenny Jones Show). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrxRCTUt6OY Which fallacies does Nick use? How and why are they useful in "winning" his argument? Use the materials about fallacies and bad arguments as a resource.

How do his arguments appeal to ethos, pathos, and logos? Explain

Resources Below: Page 1-3

Fallacies material: https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/fallacies/ I have also attached a word doc with more fallacy info.

Bad Arguments: https://bookofbadarguments.com/

Opening Scene Thank You for Smoking script

JOAN LUNDEN: Robin Williger. He is a 15-year-old freshman from Racine, Wisconsin. He enjoys studying history. He's on the debate team. Robin's future looked very, very bright, but recently he was diagnosed with cancer, a very tough kind of cancer. Robin tells me he has quit smoking, though, and he no longer thinks that cigarettes are cool. (applause)

Whoo!

And our final guest today is Nick Naylor. Mr. Naylor is the vice president of the Academy ofTobacco Studies. Now, they are the tobacco industry's main lobby in Washington, D.C. And Mr. Naylor is their chief spokesman. (audience murmuring) (booing, hissing)

NICK NAYLOR: Few people on this planet know what it is to be truly despised. Can you blame them? I earn a living fronting an organization that kills 1,200 human beings a day. 1,200 people. We're talking two jumbo jet plane loads of men, women and children. I mean, there's Attila, Genghis, and me, Nick Naylor, the face of cigarettes... the Colonel Sanders of nicotine.

This is where I work, the Academy of Tobacco Studies. It was established by seven gentlemen you may recognize from C-SPAN.These guys realized quick if they were going to claim that cigarettes were not addictive, they better have proof. This is the man they rely on, Erhardt Von Grupten Mundt. They found him in Germany. I won't go into the details. He's been testing the link between nicotine and lung cancer for 30 years and hasn't found any conclusive results. The man's a genius. He could disprove gravity. Then we've got our sharks. We draft them out of Ivy League law schools and give them time-shares and sports cars. It's just like a John Grisham novel- you know, without all the espionage. Most importantly, we've got spin control. That's where I come in. I get paid to talk. I don't have an MD or law degree. (shutter clicking) (machine gun firing) I have a bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names. You know that guy who can pick up any girl? I'm him on crack. (cheers, applause)

JOAN: This is obviously a heated issue and we do have a lot that we want to cover today. Nick, do you have a question?

NICK: Joan, how on earth would Big Tobacco profit off of the loss of this young man? Now, I hate to think in such callous terms, but, if anything, we'd be losing a customer. It's not only our hope, it's in our best interest to keep Robin alive and smoking.

RON GOODE- That's ludicrous. - Let me tell you something,

NICK: Joan, and please, let me share something with the fine, concerned people in the audience today. The Ron Goodes of this world... want the Robin Willigers to die.

RON- What? –

NAYLOR: You know why? So that their budgets will go up. This is nothing less than trafficking in human misery, and you, sir, ought to be ashamed of yourself.

RON: I ought to be ashamed of myself?

NICK: As a matter of fact, we're about to launch a $50 million campaign aimed at persuading kids not to smoke. Because I think that we can all agree that there is nothing more important than America's children.

LUNDEN: All right, now, that's something that we're going to want to know more about. But I have to take a short break.

Partial List of Fallacies used in Thank You For Smoking

Partial List of Fallacies used in Thank You For Smoking

Red Herring

Ad Populum

Ad Hominem

Tu quoque

Weak Analogy/comparison

Slippery Slope

False Dichotomy

Begging the Question

Hasty Generalization