Quick! Name a movie for tweens and up that has no drinking in it….If you think it’s tough to do, you’re right. In a 2006 study, a Dartmouth research team found that “92% of the films in a sample of 601 contemporary movies depicted the use of alcohol. Broken down by ratings, they found that alcohol was used in 52% of G-rated films, 89% for PG, 93% for PG-13 and 95% for R.” http://dms.dartmouth.edu/news/2006_h1/12jan2006_sargent.shtml
Recently, I’ve been thinking about drinking in movies, and how it might look through my tween daughter’s eyes. For her 11th birthday, I took her and a group of friends to see the movie Confessions of a Shopaholic. It was cute and funny, and the girls enjoyed it, but I felt a little uneasy. Not just about the out-of-control spending the movie showed, but also the out-of-control drinking (soft focus, with no real repercussions). As much as I wish my daughter would pick a movie like Whale Rider, she has her own taste.
Many movies for tweens and teens use drinkers as a cautionary tale (The drunk rocker in Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen) or as objects of ridicule (the drunk friend in Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist). Or there’s the one drunk night that ends badly (Lindsay Lohan barfing on her crush in Mean Girls).
But by the time women in the movies hit college and beyond, drinking is seen as the ultimate good time (can you think of a wedding-related scene without the obligatory doing-shots or drunk bride scene?), the ultimate cure-all…Much of He’s Just Not That Into You takes place in a bar. Adventureland? 99% drinking. Drinking is a rite of passage; it’s liquid courage (as in Shopaholic); it’s a way to even the score (Remember Karen Allen going head to head with Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones?).
My own random sampling of movies my daughter expressed interest in seeing, or has seen, include: Whip It (She’s dying to see it–lots of power-grrls knocking back drinks), 17 Again (party scenes, drinking), 13 Going on 30 (POOF! Jennifer Garner can legally drink!), 27 Dresses (tons of drinking), Bride Wars (brides-to-be knocking back shots of tequila), and on and on.
Through the eyes of a tween or teen going to the movies, it must seem like A) Almost everybody drinks, and B) You’d be a crashing bore not to…Unless you’re a: VAMPIRE or VAMPIRE-WANNABE! Yes, that’s right. I answered the question I asked at the beginning of this post. Twilight is a movie with (almost) no drinking, at least by its main characters. The dad drinks a beer with his friend, and Bella hands him a beer, but that’s about it. And that’s because it was written by a—-Mormon!
P.S. Another Dartmouth study by the same group of researchers (see Link above) found that movie images and scenarios influence teen drinking behavior and attitudes almost as much as drinking by parents and peers.
So-what do you think? I’m not a censorship type. Hey–I let my daughter see lots of the movies I named above. I’m just wondering–do you think all this movie drinking has an effect on kids? And do you think there’s a way to balance some of it out? Because even if you don’t drink, trust me–your kid will be confronting many others who do (either live, or on TV or film).
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m not for censorship either–I write gritty novels for teens, after all–but I thought this was an interesting analysis. I think drinking is very wide-spread in our culture, a legal drug that has many positive stereotypes associated with it in terms of a girl’s coming of age. Example, a woman who drinks Cosmos is sophisticated and urbane; a woman who drinks beer is earthy, real, a guy’s girl. So while everybody knows the Other Side of alcohol (embarrassing yourself, getting crazy, drinking and driving) has some really negative side-effects, we tend to see even the Other Side as a rite of passage, a necessary thing to go through in order to get to adulthood where drinking defines your personality, e.g., the two stereotypes I mentioned above.
I suppose it has to do with America’s schizophrenic culture, the balancing we do between our puritan heritage and our wild west heritage.
Great post, Leah. I’m not the censorship type either, and I have no doubt that movies influence kids and teens almost if not more than parents do. This has been a backlash of sorts cool young movie stars smoking in movies pitched at tweens and teens, but doesn’t seem to have extended to drinking. I guess it’s another reason for me to up the ante on discussions about moderation with my kids get older. Trying to make them think alcohol is demon rum will probably backfire, making them want it all the more, but tacitly endorsing Hollywood-style drink fests doesn’t seem like a good idea either. There are easy answers here.
Oops I meant to say there are NO easy answers here!
The belief that parents can have complete control over their children is an illusion. Are you keeping your daughter locked in the attic? If not, she knows that people get drunk. She probably knows more than you think she does. In a liberal society, she _will_ figure out that drinking is fun. Your job is to tell her that it isn’t always.