TV's Going to Pot
Am I the only person who thinks that the premise and marketing of Showtime's series Weeds is incredibly inappropriate? Doing some research on the show online, I found nearly all positive glowing reviews. I have to admit that I have not actually seen the show, since I don't get cable and rarely watch TV -- there's just not enough hours in the day.
But since Weeds first came out last year, the premise has really irked me. It's about a suburban mom who becomes a pot dealer to make ends meet after her husband passes away without leaving any life insurance. Yeah, that's a character we want people to identify with. The preview for the coming season (accessed from the link above) shows the main character Nancy driving through town with everyone smiling at her as she leaves rainbows and flowers in her wake. Who wouldn't want to be her?
Today I saw that the Golden Globe-winning and Emmy-nominated show, which is starting its second season next week, has a new marketing campaign (via Adrants). The campaign includes the ad pictured above in Rolling Stone magazine, which has an embedded marijuana-scented strip, with the copy "Catch the buzz!" next to it. They will also have ice cream trucks called "Weeds Munchie Mobiles" that will pass out Weeds merchandise and brownies at concerts and other events, and street vendors handing out coffee in Weeds cups.
The only grown-up I could find saying anything negative about the campaign is Tom Riley, the director of public affairs for the US Office of National Drug Control Policy:
In addition to reciting statistics about marijuana use ("There are more teens in treatment for marijuana than for alcohol dependence—is that funny?"), Riley chided the Rolling Stone promotion as all too retro. "Unless they're going for the over-50 demographic, it sounds like their marketing department might be a little out of touch," Riley said. "Maybe some baby boomers still find this kind of thing edgy, but young people don't."
While I don't think the marketing department being out of touch would have been my main point, at least someone has spoken out about this.
Why is it okay for Showtime to make a show glamorizing pot smoking and drug dealing, when they would probably never portray smoking tobacco or the tobacco industry as a positive thing? The problem with this type of show -- no matter how critically acclaimed it is -- is that by creating sympathetic characters who are engaging in these unhealthy and illegal behaviors, they normalize the behaviors and make them seem like something everybody else is doing. Television plays a huge role in how people construct their perceptions of reality and appropriate behavior.
Even if the Showtime execs and others involved in the program can justify it by saying that it's only on late at night after the kids are asleep, the ubiquitous ads for the program laud a drug dealer as "her highness" and use the tagline "putting the herb into the suburbs." It could just as well be promoting the use and sale of marijuana as promoting the show.
After this posting and my previous one about Jack in the Box's stoner commercial (which has incredibly been the most-viewed post since I started the blog), maybe I seem like a square old fuddy-duddy. I'm okay with that. Maybe the Showtime execs don't mind if their kids smoke pot and deal drugs, but I do.