A Kinder, Gentler Satire
I will tell you: I was really excited about Thank You For Smoking. A story about a charming smoking lobbyist without a conscience? What a brilliant world and character to explore and -- I'd hoped -- show me some difficult truths about our society while making me giggle in discomfort.
Well, those of you who've seen it know: it ain't no Network. Or Wag the Dog, or Bob Roberts, or Dr. Strangelove. I'm not actually sure this movie has seen those movies.
The big question is: what do you ask of your satire? For me, I want satire to fulfill some, if not all, of the following:
1) Make me laugh while cringing.
2) Explore some aspect/institution in our society and show me that it's much more corrupt than I could have imagined (or at least, it has the potential to be...).
3) Related to 2): Disturb/frighten me. Make me say to myself "they wouldn't...".
4) Tell a story with the regular stuff: characters, tension, consequences.
5) Explore characters that have the chance at redemption/change (whether or not they succeed).
Thank You For Smoking provided a few laughs, but once you've seen the lobbyists for tobacco, alcohol, and guns get together to compare death-stats, you've got to up the ante. The movie doesn't know how. (See, should've watched those other satires!) What's left is a very soft story about whether or not the tobacco lobbyist is going to lose his job. No kidding, that's what's at stake.
To which I ask: why do I frakkin' care?
The thing most absent from this film is the "they wouldn't..." factor. Here, there's no building to a "surely they wouldn't really allow the bomb to drop" or "surely they won't really kill Howard Beale on live TV".
This character -- slick as he is -- just isn't bad enough to be interesting. Now imagine the HBO, F/X or Showtime television series based on this same character and world. Then you realize how truly gentle Smoking is. And how big the gap between audacity on TV and audacity in film has become.
Instead, we're getting the NBC version. Oh well, win some, lose some.
Well, those of you who've seen it know: it ain't no Network. Or Wag the Dog, or Bob Roberts, or Dr. Strangelove. I'm not actually sure this movie has seen those movies.
The big question is: what do you ask of your satire? For me, I want satire to fulfill some, if not all, of the following:
1) Make me laugh while cringing.
2) Explore some aspect/institution in our society and show me that it's much more corrupt than I could have imagined (or at least, it has the potential to be...).
3) Related to 2): Disturb/frighten me. Make me say to myself "they wouldn't...".
4) Tell a story with the regular stuff: characters, tension, consequences.
5) Explore characters that have the chance at redemption/change (whether or not they succeed).
Thank You For Smoking provided a few laughs, but once you've seen the lobbyists for tobacco, alcohol, and guns get together to compare death-stats, you've got to up the ante. The movie doesn't know how. (See, should've watched those other satires!) What's left is a very soft story about whether or not the tobacco lobbyist is going to lose his job. No kidding, that's what's at stake.
To which I ask: why do I frakkin' care?
The thing most absent from this film is the "they wouldn't..." factor. Here, there's no building to a "surely they wouldn't really allow the bomb to drop" or "surely they won't really kill Howard Beale on live TV".
This character -- slick as he is -- just isn't bad enough to be interesting. Now imagine the HBO, F/X or Showtime television series based on this same character and world. Then you realize how truly gentle Smoking is. And how big the gap between audacity on TV and audacity in film has become.
Instead, we're getting the NBC version. Oh well, win some, lose some.
posted by Jennica at 9:56 a.m.
2 Comments:
indeed, well put. i find it is a different type of bad when it is satire as well, a bad movie i can dismiss and say "oh well", but when someone makes a satire, particularly of a subject that really deserves attention, and they mess it up, it seems much more wrong. so disappointing.
and ummmmm katie holmes? not so much.
I agree. Had a few decent moments, but was way to slow, not as smart or black as it thought it was, and at the end I was like: "Okay, and....?"
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