MovieChat Forums > Thank You for Smoking (2006) Discussion > Did somebody notice the racist comments ...

Did somebody notice the racist comments during the movie?

posted 13 years ago by jfoosterman
25 replies | jump to latest

For instance:
- The dialogue about which flavor is better, chocolate or vanille.
- The abbreviation R.A.V, which means Russians, Arabs and other villains.
- The words spoken by Robert Duvall, Well I think Christ himself would say. "Thats mighty white of you boys"
- The fact that the talked several times about shooting VC, Chinese or Panamese people.
- The few times that colored actors playing a part they always there to serve white people or to fulfill a negative character.

[–] nightblast 13 years ago

Deal with it.

[–] gamay9 11 years ago

I am not that politically correct. Most of your comments do not deal with race, but rather, ethnicity or other politically incorrect statements. The film script does not call a 'spade a spade' use the 'N' word or call Arabs 'ragheads' so it's okay with me.

[–] catcherbloq 13 years ago

With the exception of the first item (which is just your reading into things way too much) I think it was all intentional. The film is a satire.

[–] jfoosterman 13 years ago

You're probably right, i just didn't understand the reason of it. I really like to search for extra layers in movie's but this time i totally miss the point of it. What has smoking and lobbying for it to do with color? That it a white industry is, can i follow, because i never saw a cigarette advertisement with a colored men or woman in it. But to suggest that corruption is a very white thing to do...? Maybe it is not my kind of humor. Thanks anyway!

[–] 13 years ago

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[–] jfoosterman 13 years ago

I totally agree with that, i was just wondering of there was a special reason for the fact that the mention three different wars. Maybe they want to suggest that it is the same lobbygroup or something...

[–] 13 years ago

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[–] jfoosterman 13 years ago

Your right!

[–] Kinky_John_Fowler 12 years ago

"Your right, I must've missed the mandate that ice cream flavors are now synonymous with race. I'm pretty damn sure they were just talking about ice cream."

Nah, in most other films this would be the case, it's pretty clear however that it was meant to symbolise race in this film, as the OP and others have pointed out, there were a few other clear race related metaphors in the film.

I'm not one to look into things too much with movies either, but this was clearly a running joke throughout.

[–] 12 years ago

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[–] sippan 13 years ago

And the most glaring one, the restaurant that "only serves food that's white".

It's definitely intentional, though its significance to the plot or message is highly unclear. Maybe it's a (failed) attempt to make the audience feel ambivalent. Much of the film is contrasting a charismatic surface with some pretty creepy subtleties.

[–] jfoosterman 13 years ago

Yes indeed, I forgot that one. Your explanation for it is probably the best. I just can't make more sense out of it...

[–] Promontorium 12 years ago

I think you've gone off the deep end at this point. This film wasn't about racism. What you saw were a couple villainous characters portrayed as so old school they were racist as hell. I think all of your (sane) examples derive from the two old tobacco company employees. They WERE racist, but it wasn't about the rest of the film, it was about THEM.

A line like the restaurant with nothing but white and white food is more a mockery of snobbish rich people eating in odd faddish ways. Think about it. What would be the point of only eating food that is white in an entirely white room? You think that has something to do with race? At $200 a plate? Like the Hollywood elite are so notoriously racist. Oh wait, they're notoriously anti-racist. It was just meant to make fun of the strange lifestyle of people with too much money. Same way when they showed the tobacco boss, he was living like it was the 1930s along with black men strictly used as servants.

All the pro-smoking people in the film were portrayed as quite comfortable with their millions. while the anti smoking people were portrayed as perpetually in discomfort. Even the Marlboro man, he was shown in a perpetual state of extreme discomfort. If he had killed himself you might not have been surprised. The Congressman, the attempted assassins, anyone who debated against smoking on TV, hell even Katie Holmes in the end.

[–] jfoosterman 12 years ago

Good comment, your view on the movie as mockery of snobbish rich people is new for me and I did not think about it this way till now. Because I thought that it has nothing to do with smoking and lobbying. But your point of view is that wide that I start understanding the movie better now. You think more out off the box than I did. That indeed they want to say that people who dare to defend a product so unhealthy still live in the past where lung cancer is not a serious treat for mankind.
Otherwise with this thread I didn’t want to suggest a link between Hollywood and racism but between the tobacco industry and racism. I thought that the writers suggest something like that and I did not understand why they did that. It is already a while ago that I saw the movie and I do not remember it that good. I thought that the racial reference where pretty obvious and more frequent. But probably I also saw it in scenes (ice-cream) which has nothing to do with it. When you start looking at a movie in a special way it is easy to see things where they're not...
(I live in Holland..., so I’m not familiar with the American way of fighting this kind of issue on national television. Perhaps that is the main reason why I missed al lot of clues, who are obvious for you. This is also a excuse for mine poor writing.) Thanks a lot for your interpretation!

And still... Portraying the pro’s as happier, healthier, more successfully than the contra’s is also a statement. Every kind off advertisement is built on this golden rule! (The bastards)

[–] samuri5 12 years ago

Sure, I "noticed" the remarks, as we were supposed to, but I think they were intended to illustrate some of the characters allegedly involved in the many "lobbys," many whom themselves were caricatures (especially Robert Duvall's).

The film, like most anti-corporate films, leans more left than right politically, but I think it's being too sensitive to assign some kind of nefarious racial component to each character or the writers/director. Many of the comments, I feel, were included to illustrate the shallowness of many characters, especially in Hollywood and among the lobbyist themselves.

Re: the gun lobbyist, I thought it was funnier than hell that he joined the National Guard after being "inspired" by news footage of the Kent State shootings. That's just smart satire.

Open the pod bay doors, Hal.

[–] jfoosterman 12 years ago

Thanks for your reaction, probably I focust to much on the tabacco part of the movie than the lobby part. I start to understand that the movie is very American and because I'm not an American (I live in Holland) I miss a lot of the jokes.

[–] aa-ron-1 12 years ago

Surely of all films' comment sections this is the worst place to cry about political correctness? If I was 50 years old, I'd be one of those people the characters would claim be have been shooting at, and it didn't even occur to me that it's suppose to be racist, the characters were, but the film wasn't, for crying out loud stop being offended on behalf of someone else.

[–] 12 years ago

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[–] LewGD 11 years ago

Honestly, absence of standby Antiracist/Antiwhite grumblers would be shocking, even here on IMDB. If obtrusive American-Africans' negativism and lets not forget criminal supremacy are existent in real life, so why not in some older movies.

To your consolation, movie is from 2005, in the year 2013 every White playing with Political Incorrectness faces near death penalty. Anyway, for guarantied watching-movie pleasures you can stick to Quentin Tarantino's Antiracist/Antiwhite "masterpieces".

To comfort you even more here is my satirical precognition, as movie is also satire - White Antiracist/Antiwhite "genius" of Political Correctness will definitely darken owns world and somewhere in the future it will be all yours. Once on your own you will have All Blacks Movies, before you slide back to your movie-less stone-age roots, eventually.