Representation of Marijuana in Hollywood Films
by Philippa Klein
"While the chemical properties of marijuana have never changed, the signification and mythology surrounding the drug has. Its representation in mainstream film has undergone four significant shifts since the 1930s: 1936-60, the "killer weed" period, 1960-1984, the "drop-out weed" period, 1985-1992, the "invisible weed" phase and 1994 to the present, the "environmental weed" period. Each of these phases marks a shift in media representation of the effects of cannabis. Through such bodies as the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN), the Motion Picture Production Code (MPPC), and even certain presidencies, representation of the drug was strictly controlled. I suggest that the motivation behind these controls is racial and social, not concerning actual public health issues. As marijuana once again becomes perceived as the drug of choice for the educated middle class, its reputation is improving.
Marijuana was first brought to the United States as a psychotropic drug by Mexican migrant workers at the turn of the century1 It was available legally as a herbalist remedy for headaches, stomach upset, insomnia and a host of other applications until the late 1930s. In 1937, the Marijuana Tax Act was passed, effectively criminalizing the sale and use of the plant under federal law.2 At this time, the primary users of marijuana were Mexican migrant workers and black jazz musicians. The association of the drug with these marginal ethnic groups sealed its fate as a dangerous psychotropic drug.
It has been argued that the sole motivation behind the criminalization of marijuana was racial and economic. John Helmer, one of the first academics to use the "Mexican Hypothesis", locates
... the economic conflict in which anti-marihuana [sic] sentiments thrived in California's urban areas, where growing masses of unemployed Mexicans during the Depression were perceived as a welfare and crime problem and where a movement to deport surplus Mexican laborers developed. In this context, jailing Mexicans on marihuana charges became part of the general attempt to reduce the labour surplus, and an anti-marihuana ideology became one way of unifying and giving legitimacy to the anti-Mexican sentiment...It also generated an "ideology of marijuana" that grew independently out of the original concern.3 Jerome Himmelstein, in his book The Strange Career of Marihuana, combines this analysis with the concept of "moral entrepreneurship", in which a specific effort of a formally constituted body transforms social mores, and then sees to it that these values are applied. It has been argued that it is exactly this path that H.J. Ainslinger, the U.S. Commissioner of Narcotics, took in order to secure funding and purpose for the newly formed Federal Bureau of Narcotics.4
In my opinion, however, it was the association of marijuana with blacks and Mexicans that ultimately stigmatised the drug as a violent and addictive drug for the following thirty years. As Himmelstein concludes, "Because Mexican laborers and other lower class groups were identified as typical marihuana users, the drug was believed to cause the kind of anti-social behaviour associated with these groups, especially violent crime."5 It is in this period that we see the emergence of films such as Reefer Madness, which first use the dreaded term, "killer-weed."
Reefer Madness (1938) is an important film because it shows the blatant misrepresentation of the effects of marijuana. The story opens with an official speaking to a hall filled with concerned parents and teachers. The speaker warns of the dramatic rise, to almost "epic proportions", of the deadly addictive weed, marijuana. The speaker claims that this new plague cannot be underestimated, and the effects of the "killer-weed" may even be more deadly than that of heroine and cocaine. This "deadly narcotic" is "The Real Public Enemy Number One!" The film portrays evil pushers who pray on unsuspecting teenagers by addicting them to marijuana. The effects are shown to be crazed dancing, violent sexual tendencies, hazardous driving, and ultimately homicidal tendencies. In the final scene, the protagonist is sentenced to death after murdering two others.
It is interesting to note that there seems to be no evidence of an increased use of marijuana by white middle-class teenagers until the mid-1960s. The film warns that this happened to a community "just like yours", when it certainly did not. It is my opinion that the film was made primarily to solidify the myth that marijuana was an addictive and violent drug, not to address "real" social problems.
Filmmakers until the late 1950s were strictly bound to certain restrictions laid out in the Motion Picture Production Code. If a film did not receive approval by this group of censors, it would generally not be distributed as a general release. Seeing as any reference to narcotics, positive, or negative, was strictly forbidden, films such as Reefer Madness (1938) were not readily available to the general public. It was not until 1948, when H.J. Ainslinger himself was involved in an anti-narcotics film, To the Ends of the Earth, that the PCA gave its Certificate of Approval. In later years, the PCA amended its code to allow for films dealing with the use and sale of narcotics as long as these films portrayed this use in a negative light.
The film High School Confidential (1958) is an interesting example of the changing signification of the dangers of marijuana consumption. The increased use of marijuana by beatniks and other fringe countertcultural groups forced filmmakers to portray the effects of the drug slightly more realistically. In this film, the protagonist, and undercover narcotics officer infiltrates an upper-class secondary school in order to break an evil drug ring. While marijuana is still portrayed as being highly addictive, it is shown more as a stepping stone to the harder drug, heroin. The protagonist says to one poor weed addict, "Do I have to spell it out for you? If you flake with the weed, you'll end up using the hard stuff." Perhaps it is in this period that distinctions between "hard" and "soft" drugs start to be made, and I feel that this is directly related to the fact that more and more university students began experimenting with marijuana.
Films such as I Love You Alice B. Toklas! (1968) and Easy Rider (1969) can be used to demonstrate the changing attitude towards drug culture during the 1960's and 1970's. Marijuana was commuted, as were the laws surrounding its possession, from "killer weed" to "drop-out weed." As it became popular with middle-class white university students, its stigma was diminished greatly; so much so that it was decriminalised in eleven U.S. states. It is during this period that marijuana is portrayed openly in films as a peaceful and even enlightening natural substance.
I Love You, Alice B. Toklas is a charming comedy focusing on the mid-life crisis of the main character played by Peter Sellers. He meets a sweet flower child and is introduced to the hippie world of counterculture and pot. As Frank Thompson, in his article, "Movies on Drugs", writes, "marijuana is an entirely positive force in Toklas; everyone who uses it (even unwittingly Sellers' aging parents) emerges more thoughtful, aware, spontaneous - freer." I was hard-pressed to find films in any of the other historical periods that portray pot in such a benevolent light. Even Cheech and Chong are shown to be at best dull-witted and slow.
Interestingly, certain significations, especially surrounding sexuality and marijuana, continued through this period. The correlation of marijuana to sexual promiscuity is best demonstrated in Russ Meyer's now infamous, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970). In the opening scene we see the main characters smoke a joint and immediately begin having sex. Throughout the film, getting stoned is the excuse behind "deviant" sexual behaviour. At one point, a male character has sex with another male character simply because in his high state he could not control himself.6
The new CARA rating system, which is still in place today, demanded that any film with reference to drugs, even if presented in the most "unglamourous of light," be rated "R" or restricted. This did not seem to deter too many directors in the 60s and 70s, however, because there are countless films from this period portraying drug use in all sorts of ways. Michael Starks writes, Rolling through the sixties with Jimi Hendrix and Panama red - down with Nixon and up with acid. Call it youth revolution, hippie revolt, counterculture or whatever, it was happening big. New drugs, new music, new morals, new life-style. Whether for exploitation and quick money or for honest portrayal, drugs, particularly pot became very common, almost mandatory elements of film seeking to appeal to younger audiences.7
As the consumers and producers of the film industry began lighting up, so did the characters in the films. Dennis Hopper has admitted to actually smoking grass while filming the famous campfire scene in Easy Rider, an admission which would not be politic in the next phase, which I like to call the "Just Say No" generation.
By the 1980s the actual practice of smoking marijuana had levelled off. Statistics from Gallup Polls show that in 1969, only 4% of the American population had ever tried marijuana. In 1973, that percentage rose to 12% and rapidly increased until 1977 where it stabilized at around 25%.8 By 1987,a surveyed showed that 50% of all Americans under the age of 45 had smoked pot at least once, and if anything this percentage has decreased in the last few years.9 When Reagan began his war on drugs, there had been no increase for several years of the instances of marijuana use, nor had there been any new findings confirming that the physical effects were permanently harmful. Michael Schaffer, in his book, Reckoning with Reagan makes some interesting comments on the relationship Reagan's "War on Drugs" to the increased use of certain narcotics among different economic classes and ethnic and minority groups. Schaffer argues that the war on drugs coincided with reduced tensions between the USSR and the US during his second term.
He writes, To an extent, the drug war replaced the Cold War while "narco-terrorism" replaced the Red Army as public enemy #1...Just as the Chinese Communists had been blamed during the 1950s for the surge in heroin addiction, Reagan accused communist governments in Cuba and Nicaragua of abetting cocaine imports...he conveniently overlooked involvement by anti-communist guerrillas in Latin American drug trafficking.10
Schaffer notes that the media and government rarely discuss the causes of drug abuse and frequently misrepresent the physical consequences. He states that four to five thousand deaths per year are attributed to actual overdose (in the case of marijuana the number is zero), while alcohol-related deaths numbered over 200,000, and tobacco kills over 300,000 Americans per year (Schaffer 86). Ronald Reagan, with his zero tolerance policies, continued to place marijuana on that list of deadly drugs for which we all had to "just say no."
Marc Cooper's article, "Up in Smoke," makes some important comments on the direct relationship of Nancy Reagan's promotion of her husband's new policies and the motion picture industry. He presents a convincing argument that Nancy's direct intervention with the Motion Picture Academy is responsible for the almost complete absence of recreational drug use in mainstream films of the period. Nancy is quoted, during a speech to 1300 members of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences warning, "Your art does not free you from accountability," citing instances of pot smoking in Desperately Seeking Susan and Short Circuit.. She later met with almost all major studio heads to further her campaign.11 It seems "just say no" can be extended to artistic freedom as well.
Nancy's campaign seems to have been successful. Films during this period show that drug use of any kind leads to the inevitable decline of the character's moral stature. In films such as Clean and Sober (1988), the main character is given a choice, drugs or death. Hollywood returned to its pre-sixties attitude of only showing drugs in a negative light.
The usual mainstay of marijuana representation, the teen flick, also seemed to be in a curious state of abstinence. Compare the heros of 1982's Fast Times at Ridgemont High to 1989's Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. In Fast Times, Spicolli, played by a young Sean Penn, is the lovable if irresponsible surfer hero. Even in the epilogue he is given the honour of saving Brooke Shields from drowning. Spicolli and his friends happily toke their way through high school with no serious ill effects. Bill and Ted, on the other hand, shows two portrayals of the "stoner" personality, but with the conspicuous absence of any drug, alcohol or even cigarette use. Marijuana, having been an icon of youth rebellion for decades, was quickly snuffed out with a simple "no, please."
Finally, I will discuss the present change in attitude towards pot smoking in film. In the last six months I have noticed a sharp increase in films where characters smoke joints in plain view of the camera. Dazed and Confused, True Romance, and Reality Bites are interesting because all involve weed smoking, but none of them focus on the morality of the drug. It is perhaps the first time since the sixties that marijuana is portrayed so casually. None of the characters are addicted, harmed or are led to harder drugs on account of their use of pot. Instead, the smoking is portrayed in the same offhand manner as cigarette and alcohol consumption had been during the fifties. In looking through several reviews for these movies I found no reference to the instances of marijuana smoking in the films compared to the late eighties, where a single puff was enough to inspire Nancy Reagan to lecture the Academy on their responsibilities to society.
Is the present environmental movement affecting the general attitude towards the use of marijuana? A medical and herbalist faction is also lobbying for the decriminalization of the drug so that it can be prescribed to AIDS, glaucoma, arthritis and cancer sufferers. Bit by bit the reputation of marijuana is improving. Does this have anything to do with a new Democratic president (even if he didn't inhale)? As marijuana's reputation increases so does its portrayal in mainstream films.
While there has been no marked increase in the actual consumption of marijuana in the last several years,12 there has been a recent boom in its representation in fashion, music and film. It is my feeling, that as in the sixties, marijuana is being perceived, once again, as a middle-class recreational drug. Generation X is clean, white and environmentally responsible. It has been appropriated by both black and white rap groups as a symbol of peace and a break from crack. It is being viewed as the "natural" "non-addictive" high, as opposed to crack, heroin and cocaine.13
Marijuana is the second most consumed drug, after alcohol and before cigarettes in the United States, and its use has remained constant since the late 60's. I do not wish to defend the use of marijuana in North American society. Instead, I would like to show that Hollywood representation of the drug is linked more with prevailing political trends, and cultural and racial bias than the actual incidence of its use. In 1985, only one percent of Americans polled listed drugs as a major threat to national security. By 1989, that number had increased to 50%. There was no actual significant increase in the practice of drug-taking, just its representation in the media. It is impossible to predict the fate of marijuana in the nineties because its signification depends upon political exigencies - not on its inherent properties."
