With all of the youth-marketed television programming on these days, it’s no wonder that these shows would eventually shift their gaze to the issues surrounding drugs. Of course, teen drug use has always been a particularly sensitive problem for the media, especially of late, concerning the connection of teens to ecstasy use. Contemporary youth-targeted shows have tried to capture these problems and realities of teen drug use recently, and almost all fall notably short from this goal.
In November, Dawson’s Creek of the WB aired an episode concerning ecstasy use by high schoolers. The previews for the episode promised a gritty and somewhat realistic view of the media’s target drug. The procurer of the drug was ex-bad girl Jen (a carry-over from her wild city days). But, it is Andie – the local teen with the most angst and emotional anguish – that ends up consuming the pill. And as one should only expect from such a show, what follows is a hokey, unrealistic and chastising treatment of a very real and sensitive issue. Dawson and the crew end up at a clean and very well lit ‘rave,’ full of preppy town kids, soft background music and a few glowstick necklaces. Andie, who is apparently the only raver on ecstasy, becomes a parody of someone on drugs and finally ends up in the hospital. Predictably, the episode has a final ‘Say No to Drugs’ message, and the feel of an hour-long public service announcement.
The WB’s 7th Heaven also tackled the drug issue in a recent airing. However, as anyone who has watched this moral-touting show about a minister and his family must assume, this episode was even less gritty and less realistic than Dawson’s. It didn’t cover anything as weighty and controversial as ecstasy, but did touch upon marijuana use. Mary, the problem child of the family, associates with two of the local, teenage parent, drug using, high-school-flunk-out hoodlums. The episode involves peer pressure to lead Mary to an implied scene of smoking, though she is never actually seen using the drug. The message here seems to be even more of an obvious rant against drugs than Andie’s hospital visit, if only due to the preaching nature of the show.
Fox’s That 70’s Show strays from the usual ‘Say No’ message of television’s teen fare; the drug use is not rare, and it is not subtle. During circular camera shots, the group of high school friends chats and laughs (a lot) with smoke billowing in the background. However, it isn’t completely overt either. That is, they never explicitly say, ‘Hey, we’re smoking pot’ during the suspiciously smoky scenes (though one of the characters was busted for possession). It is taken for granted as a part of life for the bored, suburban-stranded teenagers. The message here isn’t ‘Say No.’ There is no message in the show about drugs; it is an incidental part of the plot. Analogous to the movie Traffic, it acknowledges that young people who use drugs aren’t all problem teens, hoodlums, and bad seeds, but can be so-called ‘normal’ kids.
The show doesn’t preach. After all, it is a comedy, but it also offers a gentle warning. One of the teens works at the town photo booth under the employment of the resident foolish character. He is a laughable burnout who, presumably, did too many drugs in his hippie heyday, and serves as a subtle warning to people who let drugs take over their life.
The mid-90s teen drama ‘My So Called Life’ is the only other show in recent memory to take a more rounded view on the drug issue. It covered ecstasy use and marijuana use, as well as a host of other teen substance-abuse issues. But it too portrayed some drug users as the kid-next-door type, and the problem as not just an inner city issue, but as an issue for all families, universally. Unlike That 70’s Show, however, the drama also brought to light the negative, and potentially fatal, aspects of using.
It is the television programs (and movies like Traffic) which admittedly show that there are gray areas to this problem that seem to be the most honest and effective portrayal of the problems and realities of youth and drugs. Stereotyping and condemning is most often the case, as it is seen as the morally responsible high road. A simple dismissal of the problem as ‘bad’ is taking this youth reality as a black-and-white question, and even a goofy sitcom captures the reality of drugs as they are in this country more accurately than do most teen dramas.
