Drugs and Alcohol in Mass Media - Term Paper Example

Drugs or Alcohol in Popular Culture: A Critical Gender-based Analysis Introduction Alcohol and narcotic drugs have jointly contributed a great topic for researches and debates ever since they became a challenge to the human community. Different societies have developed their own perspectives about the use of these disputed substances and concerned authorities have made timely regulations in the enforcement of laws to control their abuse and widespread supply. The campaign against the abuse of alcohol and drugs depends much on public media like advertisements and films In the process of creating awareness about the harmful effects of both alcohol and drugs. However, the makers of popular culture seem to handle the inclusion of the subject of alcohol and drugs consumption with a gender-based approach. While movies and video advertisements focus largely on the male participants as the users, an amazingly large proportion of female population is already under the control of alcohol and drugs in developed economies like America. This paper will make a critical evaluation of the manner in which visual media of popular culture expose men and women with regards to the consumption of alcohol and narcotic drugs Alcohol and Drugs in Movies and Advertisements Most societies across the world consider alcohol as an important socializing agent and a status symbol at ceremonial meetings. Alcohol consumption is a personal choice for individuals in every group; therefore, the relevance of a debate over its acceptance of denial becomes an individual decision. Alcohol works differently on different people. Some people get energized and encouraged quickly by its consumption; while others feel it like a depressant as it slows down the capacities of different sense organs of the body. Despite the repeated warnings of health hazards and socio-economic challenges it can cause to individuals, the popularity of alcohol is increasing day by day. However, the identity of alcohol as a decent element of social gathering gets damaged when some of its consumers behave badly in the society. Social media like movies and video advertisement have helped the image of alcohol and drugs as a part of high-end moment moments of social life or as an agent to boost an individual’s caliber to fight extraordinary situations and win the applause of the audience. This particular outlook itself has helped the social menace of alcoholism spread in a rapid way among most of the populations across the globe. Hollywood films are a great medium of exposing the aspect of drinking habit of men and women of the American culture. They depict the picture of alcohol both as a socializing agent and as a stimulus for organized crimes. Most movies involving the alcoholic characters explore the impact of alcoholism on the social life of individuals. Movies of the mid-twentieth century and later of the American origin showed individual characters as heavy drunkards and social destroyers. Many of them had the protagonists play the role of alcoholics who had to conceal their psychological traits for some untold reasons. Some of the observations suggest that, films from the American, German and Canadian culture exposed male characters as alcoholics and barmen with a view to tell the evil sides liquor as it is a destroyer of personal and social life of individuals; while in French movies, alcohol consumption was treated as a family routine (Blocker, Fahey & Tyrrell, 2003, p.238). The debate on how movies and other popular culture demonstrate the role of both men and women as stakeholders in the world of alcohol invites great attention. Not only that a scene involving alcohol consumption gains concentration of the audience, but also it encourages their internal urge for making such light moments. The presentation of violence in visual media through gang wars, hired assassinations and communal issues etc present in movies and video clips are also associated with a drinking background. This kind of exposure of alcohol-motivated stimulation of courage grabs the attention of the teenagers who normally make a sense to imitate some of the things they obtain from the source videos. Narcotic drugs are generally considered as an addictive substance; therefore its consumption is observed as a challenge beyond the individual boundaries. Unlike alcohol, drugs of different kinds have varying ranges of influence on their users. Regular use of narcotic drugs causes irresistible addiction which makes the users mentally unstable and physically discouraged for carrying out their daily activities. According to a report by Sacramento-El Dorado Medical Society (1990), addiction is redefined as the compulsory and uncontrolled abuse of psychoactive materials by individuals irrespective of their harmful impacts. Some of the drugs can even generate violent behavior traits in them, which may prove harmful for their families and other members of the society. To make a generalization, both alcohol and drugs harm not only individuals, but also the society as a whole when it matters productivity and prosperity. Both alcoholism and drug addiction can post tremendous challenge to the governments in many ways. At first, these harmful social menaces can affect the quality of human resources and thereby damage the wealth of the nation. Similarly, they stand as sustainable threats to the law enforcement authorities because of their destructive and degenerating nature in which they can hold the consumers. The movies based on drug addiction projects men and women as individuals to stand outside the cultural framework of the society. The makers of movies and videos about the topic of drugs often dramatize women characters with ethical complications. Most of the visual productions featuring drugs frame a story in which women belong to a financially unstable or culturally backward community who get into the world of drugs due to their stress. The eventual course of the time takes them to different kind of misdemeanor such as crimes and prostitution. What visual media shows to the public is actually an exaggerated picture of the real lives of women engaged in the traffic of drugs. According to Carilli and Campbell (2005), most movies based on drugs depict women addicts as hypersexual who engage in socially degradable situations like public sexuality and rather explicit acts like oral sex for the benefit of some money or the rocking effect of drugs which are offered by wealthy men (p.97). These movies also show a biased approach with regards to the gender specifications of the characters. For instance, a scene involving a drug addict using abusive language is a taboo for most viewers; while the obscenity around women character is treated with an entertaining spirit by them. The trend of the movies exploring the superpowers of drugs continues to come out from the Hollywood film makers. Visual media is largely embedded with the objectivity of drug addiction and alcohol abuse in order to reach the message to the audience. For this purpose men and women characters are designed on a particular format as to which they are typically portrayed to symbolize a socially expected model of behaviors. Similar to the trend of literature, movies and other visual media also focus on the objectification of alcoholics and drug addicts based on their gender. According to Szymanski, Moffitt and Carr (2011), sexual objectification of women is a trend of the advertising firms to gather quick attention of the audience through the presentation of incredible actions with objectified organs of a female model (p.16). Besides advertisement videos, movies generally highlight drug addict women as the ambassadors of morally corrupt and sexually explicit lifestyles. They also reserve objectified characters for men by projecting them as thugs, assassins or socially isolated outlaws in many stories. Men are also treated for the objectivity in alcohol advertisements, particularly when their muscularity is exposed in a sexual manner. Even though contrabands are not for the advertisements, different kinds of cigarettes and other tobacco products also contribute their own share in the objectivity of male and female in visual media. Conclusion Alcoholism and substance abuse have long been the integral part of themes of movies and other visual media productions. The presentation of male and female characters in the visual creations featuring these topics creates social pictures of men and women with a disgusting appeal. Film makers and producers of visual advertisements rely on the objectivity of men and women for higher commercial viability of their products. However, both alcoholism and drug abuse are a challenge to the humanity; therefore, they should be treated with care in popular culture and visual art models. References Blocker, J. S., Fahey, D. M & Tyrrell, I. R. (Eds.). (2003). Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History: An International Encyclopedia. US: ABC-CLIO. Carilli, T & Campbell, J. (2005). Women and the Media: Diverse Perspectives.US: University Press of America. Szymanski,D. M., Moffitt, L. B & Carr, E. R. (2011). Sexual Objectification of Women: Advances to Theory and Research. The Counseling Psychologist, 39(1), 6–38. Sacramento-El Dorado Medical Society. (1990). The Painful Dilemma: The Use of Narcotics for the Treatment of Chronic Pain. Retrieved from http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/asap/dilemma.htm Read More