MOVIES ABOUT MARIJUANA AND OTHER EVILS

EPHEMERAL DEVIANCE at the Blinding Light!! Mar. 20 and Mar. 21

Imagine yourself as a typical middle-class suburban teenager of the 1950s.
It's a sunny afternoon, your high school social studies class is about to
start watching a reel-to-reel film. Up until now you were blissfully
unaware of the dangers of drugs, depression, and poor judgement, but that's
all about to change...

Ephemeral Deviance is an assemblage of these socially-relevant 1950s and
1960s educational films that feature stories of teenage "DRUG ADDICTION,"
persons undergoing "PSYCHOLOGICAL TURMOIL," a man named "DICK SMITH: DRUG
ADDICT," and a hasty marriage that is "DOOMED TO FAIL."

This collection strikes at the heart of many modern social commentaries.
With their 1950s moralistic themes, these films more than implied that
conforming to the norm is the safe path, while deviations from socially
determined standards lead one down a slippery slope indeed.

More propaganda than education, these films are fun to watch.

I especially enjoyed trying to determine what special interests were at
work behind the scenes. Each movie had its own distinct and peculiar angle
of critique; the films' different filters on essentially the same society
made for an interesting glimpse into the ideologies of 1950s America (and
Canada).

In Drug Addiction, the naive young protagonist makes the well documented
transition from MARIJUANA CIGARETTES to HEROIN in just a few months,
starting as a user, and soon enough, becoming 'the pusher.' He finds that
DRUG ADDICTION is really a bad thing, as he has tremendous difficulty in
rebuilding his life after former friends shun him. The proposed solution to
ending tragedies like these?

A WAR ON DRUGS, to get all the pushers thrown in jail.

Your Psychological Turmoil is the story of an unassertive young woman who
experiences chronic TURMOIL (such as headaches, depression, and constant
fatigue) in her daily life. The individual is not the focus of the blame in
this film-the problem is traced back to the parents, who "train" their
daughter too well, crushing her spirit.

As a little girl competing for her parents' attention with her younger
sister, she dances around, trying to get noticed. Her mother just eyes her
contemptuously, and says coldly: "Nobody likes a showoff." Using flashbacks
and a quasi-scientific rationality not unlike James Burke's method of
deduction on Connections, this film had a remarkably modern, intelligent
take on the situation causing TURMOIL in the first place.

Dick Smith: Drug Addict was the lone Canadian entry in the lineup.

Heroin addict DICK SMITH goes really nuts under the effects of DRUG
WITHDRAWAL. While in prison, he advises a convict played by Bruno Gerussi
(previous to his role as Nick Adonidas on CBC's Beachcombers) to stay away
from heroin, before he himself spirals back into a narcotic skydive.

The twisted psychotic derangements make poor Dick undergo sick-looking
contortions, leading him to bash his head repeatedly against his cell wall,
unequivocally demonstrating the rigours of his withdrawal.

Doomed to Fail was probably the best film shown.

In it, a young academic researcher falls for THE WRONG GIRL-a simplistic,
spontaneous, and energetic woman who could never fit into his world of high
society.

Their future demise is foreshadowed ominously throughout the film, from
Ken's panicked objection to Winnie picking flowers, to Winnie's insistence
that stubborn Ken should write books for fame and fortune.

This film features possibly some of the most brutal dialogue ever written,
as seen by the modern viewer.

Lines such as "I want to die before you, Ken!" and "If you didn't love me,
I'd kill you, Winnie!" are delivered with such earnest glee, one would
think these two psychos are the ONLY matches for each other.

Despite the simplistic moralising undercurents, there are some inescapable
good points made about drug addiction and neglected children.

Despite the twisted spins on reality presented in these films, it wouldn't
be hard to imagine yourself back in the 50s high school classroom, taking
it at face value-who could blame the Silent Generation for harbouring such
irrational prejudices about social homogenisation and normalcy?

This was a time before "sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll,"; there were few
outlets for counterculture to show an alternative view of things.

So did these films work educationally? Not for me, but I'm not so sure
about some of our parents...