Pleasure and Pain: Representations of Illegal Drug Consumption, Addiction and Trafficking in Music, Film and Video

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Boyd, S. 2011. ‘Pleasure and pain: Representations of illegal drug consumption, addiction and trafficking in music, film and video’ in Fraser and Moore (eds) 2011. The Drug Effect: Health Crime and Society. Melbourne; Cambridge U Press.

Boyd (2011) explores the way in which genres such a music, video and film, express the use of drugs, drug user groups and drug traffacking . She presents a timeline of evidence about the diverse and ever-changing drug use in these genres. This essay will explore the various exploitations of drugs used by these mediums through historical and modern evidence and theories.  Although Boyd (2011) argues that the representation of drugs in these mediums can be either educational or destructive, there is more evidence to express that the use of drugs in these mediums give the public the idea that drugs are pleasurable and compatible with non-criminal charges (Boyd, 2011). Boyd (2011) also shows how the representation of drugs and durg users can be easily linked and refelective on minority groups based on ones cutlure, background and ethniticy. Himmelstein’s ‘guiding concepts’ (1983) and Manderson’s journal (1995) both follow a similar discussion to that of Boyd’s, and all three texts work well to support each other.

Boyd (2011) uses her case study to allow the audience to understand that mediums exposed through popular culture, such as film and video, influence drugs to be decieved as either pleasurable or painful. More often than not, Boyd results in explaining the detrimental uses of these substances under all cirucmstances.  Boyd (2011) argues that drug use in popular culture has been degrading the severity of consequences since the early 1960s, but she looks to enforce the opposite. “Drug prohibition and film emerged during the same era” (Boyd, 2011), thus allowing the ideas of drugs being portrayed in these mediums to influence the community to make an educated opinion about drugs and drug use. The music being made from the early 1960s including ‘Refeer Man’ and ‘Wacky Dust’ illustrated drug use to be pleasing to the public, and were popular, until “positive images of drugs were banned from the USA”. (Boyd, 2011). Still in modern day, artists such as Miley Cyrus use lyrics to support the idea of drug use for pleasure, seen in the opening line of her hit song 23 (2013) “I’m in the club, high on purp, with some shades on.” Stars, such as Miley, using drugs in these ways are being ridiculed by both the press and the public. Although there are several social examples of drugs being pleasurable, Boyd (2011) explains the film Reefer Madness (1935) to “depict the… degredation associated with marijuana addiction” (Boyd, 2011), in order to explain the severity of the “killer weed”. Boyd (2011) discusses films such as Narcotic (1934) to educate moviegoers about the horrors of drugs and addiction (Body 2011), coupling with Himmelestien (1983) representation of “Killer Weed” (Himmelestien 1983). Himmelestien (1983) then goes to explain the changing structure of beleifs held by the public, from killer weed to the drop out drug. This is also portrayed in Boyd’s article  (2011), when discussing Get Him To The Greek (2010), a film that represents drugs to “sell the product” (Boyd 2011).  Boyd (2011) overpowers negative influences with chilling examples such as Refeer Man, showing audience that although the protrayed drugs have a potential to be pleasurable, there is a larger emphasis on the damaging affects the drugs could have.

Boyd (2011) argues that “individuals who seek bodily pleasure through practises regarded as harmful and criminal often become objects to fear and revulsion.” (Maclean, 2008). These individuals are usually minority groups who are targeted by soicety because of sterotypes placed on certain genders, cultures, ages and people. Boyd (2011) confirms this in her studies, when explaining that “white woman’s drug use and pleasure are also … linked to breakdown of moral society”. (Boyd, 2011). Furthermore, a group heavily targeted by stereotypes regarding drug use were black people, but in reality “African Americans do not control the means of narcotics production, refinement, or international transhipment and only marginally control the retail, low-end domestic distribution network” (Nadell, 1995). This sterotype on African Americans can be highlighted in film ‘American Gangsta’ (2007), which follows a black man being at the forefront of a drug ring in America.  The film reiterates the sterotype placed on black people, through mediums used such as film. Most sterotypes are placed incorrectly on these minority groups, and that is something Boyd tired to argue in her case study.