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Meaning Of Drug Abuse

HOLLYWOOD'S DEPICTION of the U.S.'s War on Drugs is about as dubious and unpersuasive as the official policies of government power on this terrible social blight. From its early history, the cinema's portrayal of narcotics and drug addicts has been highly problematical. Early silent movies associated drug usage with the underclasses, criminals, or the totally deranged. With the coming of the Hays Office (the first censorship board) in 1930, it could rarely be portrayed, and the drug user was thoroughly stigmatized. For several decades, drug abuse was not an especially big topic for movies, the assumption being that this problem affected poor minority populations not necessarily pouting money into the box office. There were exceptions, of course, like the 1936 hysterical cult film "Reefer Madness" that responded to the perceived influence of marijuana on youth culture, as drugs were associated with the equally pernicious influences of jazz and be-bop.

In the 1950s, drugs were associated with youth rebellion in "teen pics" like "High School Confidential" (1958), which saw youth complaints as motivated by Mr. Big-style pushers poisoning the minds of otherwise wholesome, straitlaced suburban teens. Several biopics of the period like 1959's "The Gene Krupa Story" and hipster melodramas like "The Man With the Golden Arm" (1955) emphasized the "monkey on the back" view of drugs, which had a talented artist bedeviled by a near-metaphysical affliction that almost robs him of his career and life (ignoring, of course, the notion that musicians and actors like drummer Krupa and Robert Mitchum were harmed less by their drug problems than the attendant deluge of negative publicity).

The 1960s again associated drugs with youth rebellion, not much of a stretch given the preeminence of the marijuana leaf as a counterculture icon. One of the most respected youth films of the period, Dennis Hopper's "Easy Rider" (1969), recognizes that drugs may have played a role in destroying the utopian dreams of the period. (An alternative reading is that being drugged is as American as apple pie, addiction being the keystone of consumer society.)

Movies of the 1970s such as "The French Connection" (1971) brought attention to the notion of international drug trafficking, its complex and arcane networks, and the failure and/or refusal of the legal apparatus to stop it. The character of Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman) also introduces the policeman-as-psychotic, a person whose conduct may be as destructive to the populace as the foe he's chasing. This picture, revolutionary on several counts, gives a light touch to the politics of drugs and says the usual things about the addict--a person who haunts the seamy underside of our cities and has no social role other than parasite.

Brian DePalma's 1983 remake of "Scarface" ratcheted up both the horrific image of drugs in the contemporary world and the violence and corruption attached to it. This epic gangster film ties criminality to the American immigrant experience itself, suggesting that crime--the centerpiece of which is drugs--can't be disconnected from the American Dream. The violence and avarice of drug lord Tony Montana (Al Pacino) could occur only in a society that supports--indeed demands--competition and acquisition as hallmarks of success and accomplishment. "Scarface" is not concerned with a well-meaning police authority stymied in its attempts to stop the avalanche of drugs, but, rather, corrupt bureaucrats who actually assist drug traffic as part of the realpolitik of postwar foreign policy.

One of the most-celebrated pictures at this year's Oscars was Steven Soderbergh's "Traffic" an attempt at a conscientious depiction of our failed drug policies. This highly generic movie has precious little to offer as to the real dynamics of drugs in our times. The film contains, among many hoary conventions, a government drug czar (Michael Douglas) whose eyes are opened at the penultimate moment, recognizing that his cheerleader daughter is an addict. He leaves his paneled offices to forage into the heart of urban darkness, much like George C. Scott in the 1978 film "Hardcore" to find his stricken child and grab her persecutors by the scruff of their necks. The scenes of his plight are intercut with sepia-toned images of Mexico, specifically the slums of Tijuana, and the attempts of two underpaid street cops to nab a drug kingpin. While the U.S. appetite for drugs is acknowledged, as is the refusal to treat this crisis as a public health problem, rather than a criminal justice issue, "Traffic" is remarkably unsophisticated on drug politics and lacks even the savvy of "Scarface." The onus is placed on Mexico, always the Evil Other of the Hollywood Western, and this film's oddly-colored footage emphasizes that nation as weird, corrupt exotica. While these sequences are saved in part by the Academy Award-winning performance of the superb actor Benicio Del Toro, his work doesn't mitigate the movie's refusal to entertain, even metaphorically, the U.S. government's complicity in drug trafficking by, say, sponsoring drug salesmen like Panamanian strong-man Manual Noriega when he was profitable to the CIA during the contra war (against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua), only to bomb Panama and arrest him when he began to make nationalist remarks about the Canal Zone.

Equally questionable as a lesson on the realities of drugs is Ted Demmes' "Blow," a 2001 Johnny Depp vehicle based on the life of drug peddler and addict George Jung, who at one time teamed with some of the major traffickers in the hemisphere to create a small empire. The picture is little more than a rags-to-riches, crime-doesn't-pay story dating back to films like "Public Enemy" (1931), as a young punk wants to escape his oppressive family, soon finding himself going delightfully astray, his enlightenment occurring only when he is on the way to a lifetime jail sentence. The movie also wants to conflate the 1960s and 1970s with drugs alone, with little or nothing to say about the political upheavals that must have affected even slugs like Jung.

As usual with any social issue, one has to look long and hard to find a serious, probing statement about drugs coming from Tinseltown. Alfred McCoy's book The Politics of Heroin and Alexander Cockburn's Whiteout have more to offer than anything that Hollywood uses to convince itself of its social conscience.

Christopher Sharrett, Associate Mass Media Editor of USA Today, is professor of communication, Seton Hall University, South Orange, N.J.

COPYRIGHT 2001 Society for the Advancement of Education
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group