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- guardian.co.uk,
- Sunday June 27 1999 19.00 BST
It seems that Hollywood has raised the white flag in its war against drugs. Or, to paraphrase Stanley Kubrick's Dr Strangelove, they've finally learned to stop worrying and love the bong.
Historically, the sight of an actor snorting or smoking illicit substances on-screen signalled moral degradation, imminent demise or a Robert Downey Jr home movie.
Things have changed, though. American audiences are yet to see Human Traffic's carefree narcotic hedonism, but stateside, filmgoers haven't been short of movie highs this year.
A string of teen-slanted films happily portray drugs as the Clearasil generation's favourite recreational activity. Critically, there is little hint of distaste or unease about their actions.
True, those wholesome folks down at Dawson's Creek aren't wide-eyed ravers yet, but elsewhere the message is: Just Say Yes.
In the teen-horror movie The Faculty, released earlier this year, the only way to distinguish the zombies from humans was their reaction to the homemade cocaine-lite concoction popular at high school. It blew the heads off the bad guys: the good guys just had a great time.
Doug Liman's upcoming and critically acclaimed Swingers follow-up, Go (pictured), charts the multi-layered repercussions of a failed drug deal. The movie never seeks the moral highground. Quite the opposite. The hapless first-time dealer, played by Sarah Polley, is the plucky heroine; the narcotics cop (William Fichtner) is sleazy and duplicitous.
Currently, Sarah Michelle Gellar's deliciously evil Manhattan society girl enjoys a toot in between arranging dangerous liaisons in the dark comedy, Cruel Intentions.
Meanwhile, three of Hollywood's biggest names smoke marijuana with no ill-effects in their next screen outings. Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman light up in Eyes Wide Shut. As does Leonardo DiCaprio in the back-packing drama, The Beach.
Before Easy Rider, consequence-free drug use was a no-no. Until the Forties, the notorious Hays Code forbade onscreen drug depiction, no matter how judgemental. When the ban was lifted, message movies tended to show the horrors of addiction.
The plight of James Mason in Bigger Than Life (cortisone abuse), Frank Sinatra in The Man with the Golden Arm (heroin) and Al Pacino in Scarface (cocaine) were typical. The side-effects they experienced were so gruesome, the films looked like government health warnings.
Obviously, that isn't the case anymore. If you want to send a message to today's media-literate kids, it's much easier to use e-mail.
