A dangerously comedic high

After a long, exhausting weekend of eating pizza and watching movies on Netflix, a realization hit me.

Without even noticing it, I have been brainwashed into thinking that there aren’t any side effects of heavy drugs. Or if there are, they aren’t a huge deal.

Our whole childhood, we were taught to stay in school, don’t talk to strangers and say no to drugs. And as fifth graders, we all swore that we would never try any type of drug. However, now that we are at an age where drugs are most available and appealing to us, we are being shown only their fun aspects.

One of my favorite scenes of any comedy is in “21 Jump Street” where Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill take the drug. Each stage of the drug was funnier than the previous one. I could not stop laughing the entire time. It didn’t even occur to me I was laughing at a highly dangerous thing until I talked to my younger sister about the movie. She had found it just as funny as I did, which kind of concerns me.

That got me to thinking about how Hollywood portrays drugs to its viewers. Pop culture tends to glorify drugs in a way that makes people want to do them. When we were little, we only saw the scary and gruesome side of drugs. Nowadays, I only see the fun aspects of the same drugs. I even find myself singing about them when songs like “We Can’t Stop” by Miley Cyrus are stuck in my head.

One of the hit TV shows right now is “Weeds,” a comedy about a single mother who sells marijuana. And, of course, we can’t forget about “Breaking Bad,” which tells the story of a man who makes meth. While a show about weed isn’t that big of a deal to me, because marijuana doesn’t cause that much harm, a show about meth has me a little concerned. 

Shows like these are becoming the norm in our society, and drugs aren’t seen as a huge problem like they used to be.

And when a movie or show demonstrates one of the negative aspects of drugs, they tend to mention it briefly instead of emphasizing the seriousness of the situation. I’m not going to say Hollywood is completely in the wrong for making some light of drug use. There is obviously an appeal that comes from drugs, otherwise people wouldn’t use them. But there should be a balance in how drugs are portrayed.

It is completely up to the individual whether or not they want to try drugs. Using drugs of any type will produce both positive and negative sides for the users and the people around them. 

Movie and TV producers should take this into consideration when featuring drugs in their programs.

syrafter@indiana.edu
@sydraft