In the film, Thank you For Smoking, the fictional Senator Finistierre of Vermont, discussing upcoming testimony on a bill he is sponsoring to label all cigarettes with a skull and cross bones and the word “poison,” is told by an aide that an adversary is aligned with a lung organization.

His response: “Damned Nonprofits!” struck me. For one thing, I could not recall ever before hearing the word “nonprofit” spoken in a movie. (If any of you knows of such an instance, please send it along and I’ll post it.)

Of course, I would have preferred if this mention of our sector had been couched in more positive terms, but we have to start somewhere. By using the term we in the sector all take for granted, the director has decided that the viewing audience—the public at large—will be familiar with it.

This could be because of the particular appeal of this movie—many of us probably thought it was going to be a documentary on smoking—but still, it’s progress. Usually nonprofits are referred to in media and film as “charities,” or as “the foundation,” or by their made-up organizational names, so this is an improvement.

Tags: nonprofit

This entry was posted on Monday, October 9th, 2006 at 3:20 pm and is filed under Trends. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.