Culture Crop: Managing Mainstream Marijuana's Morals

Freeling rolls away her worries behind Reagan's back.

Cheech and Chong may have created the stoner comedy. Since then, movies like Half Baked, Pineapple Express and Friday have been fueled with silly jokes about weed and the people that smoke it. When people are smoking marijuana in movies or tv, it’s not often taken seriously. The theme of teenagers smoking in the basement of That 70’s Show and in Dazed and Confused show high school kids getting high as something to laugh at. In Poltergeist, the mother smoking in her bedroom, while she relaxes with her husband, was a set up allowing the tone of the movie to jump from calm to anxious. Using pot as a plot device normalizes the substance. Having the mother be a smoker didn't add to her character development, didn't give her character a vice to overcome in order to save her child and family, it didn't change the story at all. The mother smoking a joint was just dressing, possibly a relic from writers that were coming into their own during the summer of love. Though, this scene could have been a slap in the face of the Reagan's own republican perspective and the onslaught drug culture would face during his terms: look at the book Mr. Freeling is reading in the foreground while Mrs. Freeling is rolling up something for herself in the background.

"I learned it by watching you!"

By telling people to "just say no," in 1982, Nancy Reagan aimed the spotlight to a war on drugs that officially started in the summer of 1971. The 80's and 90's saw P.S.A.s filling airwaves. T.V. shows put out “special” episodes where a character has a special problem (domestic violence and A.I.D.S awareness were two big players in the P.S.A. game too). Drugs become demonized with the help of the media and writers eager to snatch from the headlines. Not every P.S.A. targeted children. One of the most memorable of these announcements directly targeted adults by warning them that a child's bad habit may be an imitation and perpetuation of what they see parents doing.

Even still, fighting a problem isn't about placing blame, it's about coming up with solutions and informing your target audience of the answers. A key element to getting your message to an audience is letting them know that it affects them, no matter who they are. When you show kids that not even their idols at Bayside High were free of troubles and pressures, your message gets a chance to resonate. Kids may not want to listen to parents, it's part of their DNA after all. Instead of having a sit down with your kids, taking them out of their routine to give them a talk that may be uncomfortable, why not have the talk placed into their routine? Better yet, why not have their best friend, Zack Morris, give it to them when he's over next time? It's sneaky! It's genius! It might have even worked on some viewers when Saved By The Bell gave over-achiever Jessie Spano her own  substance abuse problem. Under the pressure of acing tests and keeping up with clubs to look good for colleges while pleasing parents, getting ready for the big dance and being a teenager, Jessie turned to caffeine pills to keep up. In this special episode of Saved By The Bell, "Jessie's Song," Zack convinces Jessie that she doesn't need the pills, that the pills are the enemy. In this episode, the audience sees a teenager, faced with very typical problems, turning to drugs for an answer.

No one is perfect

By the end of the episode, the demon drugs are thrown to the floor and a good talk between old friends shows Jessie that she has loving people in her life to get her through problems, that she doesn't need drugs. The conclusion of this episode is that drugs are bad for your health, don't get you what you want, and, when Zack Morris (the personification of cool) is telling you to stay away from them, that they are not for cool kids, even if it's JUST caffeine pills.

Fast Forwarding to 2005, when the smoke from the Reagan era had cleared to elect one president that "did not inhale," and another that lived it up, Showtime put out a show called Weeds. Even though it was on a premium channel and it debuted after a legion of pot themed movies, Weeds came out on the small screen, the same screen that brought us all those Public Service Announcements. It may seem easy to write the show off as a prime-time soap opera, but it was more than just pretty faces captured in the flash of the California sun. Disregarding the relationships and sentimentality centered at the structure of a primetime soap, the show's basic plot shows something serious going on (growing?).

Weed is given a pin-up girl. how times have changed.

When the main character of Weeds, Nancy Bowtin, finds herself trying to keep her family in the same tax bracket they were in before her successful husband died, she decided to sell pot. Being the single mother of two children and choosing to sell drugs gives a tv show a lot of topics to run with, everything from how circumstances blur the lines of right and wrong to the which-batch-of-brownies-is-for-the-school-fund-raiser-and-which-is-to-sell episode (I'm not sure they did that episode, but they should have!). Still, what's most interesting is how Weeds shows a cultural shift, from the days of the P.S.A. and episodes with special lessons about drugs, to a time when pot is almost a central character in the show, one that is not only normalized but glamorized, and sold like hot rods (pictured left).

It's now well passed the 80's. The public service announcements that used to air on television are not very present and that may be because T.V. and movies don't have the same cultural cache they once did. More people are tuning into pay channels to watch shows produced with the creative liberties that were afforded to Weeds and The Soprano's. Still, even more people are being visually entertained by the internet. Like Weeds, High Maintenance doesn't focus on pot. Weed is the background noise of this series that just got picked up by Vimeo. The show is revolves around pot and wouldn't be the same thing without it, but the show doesn't try to make a statement about pot or its use.

If Seinfeld was a show about nothing, High Maintenance is a web series about a weed dealer biking through New York City. But Seinfeld wasn't a show about nothing, it was a show about a comedian and his group of friends that were over-grown children trying to behave like adults and failing miserably at it. With a show about a pot dealer, it's almost impossible not to have smoking in the show, but this show has no agenda. With legalization popping up in states and the promises of big money being the main focus of marijuana in the media, the plant is given a new life and cultural weight this century. Still, this show is not out to advocate. One episode starts off showing what seems to be a young couple, Heidi and Mark, in love. The camera shows the two new characters in their twenties set up a fort in the living room, eat meals together and talk about this and that between moments of affection. While this happens, Heidi is seen smoking marijuana occasionally. When Heidi leaves to pick up food, Mark, stays home to wait for their delivery man. Once there, the guy (yes, that is how he is credited) and Mark start catching up. Mark starts talking to the guy about Heidi. He reveals he met her online, that the past two weeks have been great before showing him a picture of her. The guy, a man about town, reveals that Heidi is actually "Homeless Heidi," a scam artist that uses unknowing men. All the times Heidi has been shown asking for money for the delivery food, or to pick up groceries or buy the pot, flood back to Mark and he knows the guy is right. In this episode, aside from the guy, pot smokers are shown to be deadbeats that are smart enough to con people, contrary to their easy going, peace-loving, absent-minded cliche.

In the episode "Helen," the show starts off with a man, in his late twenties or early thirties, lying on a bed with his sickly mother as they talk and watch television. The audience learns that the mother is bedridden and that her son, Patrick, cares for her. The camera watches as he shops online, grooms himself and accepts delivered groceries. We get to see into the uneventful life of Patrick before the guy knocks on the door. A cleaned, well dressed Patrick answers the door and invites him in. The two chitchat before it's time for an exchange. It's discovered that Patrick has a crush on the guy when he makes an awkward grab for the guys waist. The guy, always cool (for all intents and purposes, he's the personification of pot, which is assisted by not giving him a real name), brushes it off as no big deal by acting natural and leaving amicably. When the guy does leave, Patrick is shown throwing the bag of pot in a cigar box filled with others like it. The credits don't just begin to scroll, instead the guy is seen on the streets, enjoying the wonders of a parade on the streets of New York as a happy song plays. A massive divide is being presented between these characters. If the guy is a personification of weed, then Patrick, a man that never leaves his house, may be a symbol for closeted gay men. If pot was the plot device for silly jokes, then it has now become one to talk about, or at least hint at, bigger issues and look at complex characters with real problems that have nothing to do with substance abuse.

Ellen & Ruth watch birds while Saul gets high 

While the pot might not have gone to the person you expected it to in "Helen" (the sick mother), High Maintenance takes nine minutes to bring another look at how marijuana intersects with sick people. In "Brad Pitts," We are taken into the life of Ellen. Ellen likes to go out and watch birds when she's not at the office. Other than that, all we get to know is that she's having trouble eating and setting a date for the doctor. This story focuses on her making a solid friend in her community of bird watchers, and getting someone to drive her to and from her appointment. In the process, she happens to choose someone that knows the guy, Ruth and her husband Saul. Aside from the very serious tone of this episode, "Brad Pitts," manages to bring in comic relief. After Ellen and Ruth start to talk, Ruth suggests Ellen smokes pot to bring back her appetite. The laughs start when Saul gets in touch with the guy. Not able to get it himself, Saul calls the guy explaining how he'll need to bring it to Ruth by using profanity as he urges the guy to be polite to his wife and friend that have no real experience with dealers. The guy arrives briefly to help out the ladies and the laughs hit a crescendo when he gets a call moments after leaving because Ruth thinks she's gone crazy before the whole episode wraps with an element of closure as Ellen is seen eating ravenously while exit music plays.

High Maintenance isn't a show about weed, it's an anthology about characters. These episodes range from five to fifteen minutes. In that amount of time, it's hard to tell big stories, but the perfect amount of time to take a look at a group of strangers. Like a collection of stories by Raymond Carver, with each new act of High Maintenance, the audience gets to peek into the lives of a person, or group of people, and see what makes these people move and stay together. As a viewer, you never know when the guy is going to make an appearance, only that he will. It's not the guy that keeps someone clicking the play button on each new episode, it's the writing and the insight. Without the internet, a show like High Maintenance may not have been given the room to breathe: there are no guidelines to length, the main character doesn't have a real name and he's barely in it for most episodes. It might also have a hard time getting commercial sponsorship.

With the internet, format is malleable and largely at the discretion of the creative forces behind a video or movie. Sponsors may not be needed, after all, this very website costs nothing to post to, neither does youtube. While the internet is filled with its share of people making big clicker videos that show people unboxing phones and giving tips from everything to make-up to videogames, the internet has opened doors for well-made, thought provoking shows like High Maintenance, even though it's a show about a pot dealer on the surface.

On the other end of the internet spectrum, exists the show Getting Doug With High. On comedian Doug Benson's video podcast / talk show, Doug and a group of people, mostly other comedians, sit around a table and get high. If pot was a supporting character or prop in the background for other shows, then it is the main character and setting for this show. Unlike most talk shows, there are not fascinating stories taken from the paper for the host and guests to discuss, just weed to smoke and a few marijuana related trivia facts to talk about. A guest comes on, smokes, talks about his or her first experience with pot, smokes, answers questions from twitter and smokes some more.

Doug Benson, professional stoner.

What makes this show worth talking about is that, despite its basic format and Wayne's World production value, it succeeds. In between the actual smoking, there's a lot of talking. With a room full of comedians, the talking tends to turn into funny off-the-cuff jokes. The show is unchallenging but that is why it's so good. Void of any pretense, whatsoever, episodes of Getting Doug With High have garnered more than 1 million views. Building an audience and branding himself through twitter, Benson proved that beyond the pot, he's a businessman that earned his show sponsorships with several companies and products advertising during the short segment breaks. While all the sponsors are for pot smokers (vaporizers and delivery services), this show is still finding a way to keep itself rolling in the green (pun intended). What's best about this show is that, despite Benson saying that he doesn't know how the show can be funny for people that aren't smoking while watching, it is. While it may be a novelty to virtually get high with comedians and actors, I can honestly attest that it's still entertaining to watch stoned comedians and actors joke around with one another while sober. After all, you don't have to be drunk to laugh at Drunk History.

It's hard to say how long before all of the United States will have Marijuana legalized, if it will be a good thing in the long run, or if it's way overdue. Still, the change in public attitude is seen in everything around us, from the teenagers in the park that don't fear a ticket (I'm writing from Philadelphia) to the movies in theatres and the shows on television and its successor the internet. A change is happening and starts with what people perceive pot to be. Some shows like Getting Doug choose to attach itself to the classic view and depict pot as a recreation for people to relax with as they joke with friends. The show Weeds used pot as the glue used by a mother to keep her family together. Now, the show High Maintenance uses pot as a plot device that gets the camera behind closed doors to take a look at how strangers live and talk to one another. In these times, there's as many way to use weed to tell a story as there are uses for hemp.