Visualizing
Vi
li i
aC
Century
t
off
fictional film representations
of women and drugs: The
Performance of Gender and
Addiction
Susan Boyd
Boyd, PhD,
PhD University of Victoria
Victoria.
Funded by SSHRC
Introduction
¾
¾
¾
Drug film: Full length fictional films
g drug
g use or trafficking
g is
where illegal
the focus
Films from 1912-2006
120 films prod
produced
ced in Britain
Britain, Canada
Canada,
& the United States
Cultural and Feminist Criminology
gy
„
A mode of analysis
y that embodies
sensitivities to gender, race, class, image,
meaning,
g, and representation
p
in the study
y of
crime and control.
„
Questions the expansion of criminal justice
and militarism, especially in the US
S
„
Illegal Drug films: Involve the production of
meaning and truth claims
claims.
The Power of Pictures
„
„
„
News photos have ideological significance because
they can “enhance, locate, or specify the ideological
theme” ((Hall,, 1981))
Applying Hall’s exploration of news photos to film,
we can see how representations
p
of women illegal
g
drug users, drugs, addiction, and drug paraphernalia
are fetishized in film “refracting the ideological
theme at another level,” one that we come to
recognize and understand.
Pharmacological determinism.
Women and illegal
g drugg films
„
Mostt illegal
M
ill
ld
drug fil
films d
depict
i t male
l b
buddies
ddi or groups off
traffickers.
„
Women are mostly marginal to the film story.
„
Women’s drug
dr g use
se is se
sexualized,
ali ed raciali
racialized,
ed and class
class-biased.
biased
„
Pharmacological
g
determinism.
„
Women’s addiction and downfall are used to measure moral
decline and the breakdown of the family and society
society.
The Mystery
y y of the Leaping
p g Fish (1916
(
–
USA)
Mystery
y y of the Leaping
p g Fish (1916
(
– USA))
„
Fi t full-length
First
f ll l
th d
drug fil
film iin E
English
li h
„
Sherlock Holmes character users cocaine and laudanum: Coke
Ennyday.
„
His drug use is depicted as positive and helping with his detective
work.
„
Th morall h
The
heroine
i iis B
Bessie.
i
In contrast: Opium
p
trafficking
g by
y Asian men is depicted
p
as evil.
„
Fishy Joe a trafficker tells Bessie: “Girl you are in my power!”
The Dividend ((1916 - USA))
Broken Blossoms ((1919 – USA))
Human Wreckage
g (1923
(
- USA))
The Pace that Kill ((1928 – USA))
The Cocaine Fiends ((1935 – USA))
Narcotic (1934 – USA)
Assassin of Youth ((1935 – USA))
Marihuana, The Weed with Roots in Hell
(1936 –USA)
Reefer Madness ((1936 - USA))
Reefer Madness party
p y
The Trip
p ((1967 - USA))
Valleyy of the Dolls (1967
(
–USA))
The Panic in Needle Park ((1971 USA)
The Panic in Needle Park ((1971 –
USA)
Drugstore
g
Cowboy
y ((1989 –USA))
Postcards from the Edge
g (1990
(
–
USA)
Losing
g Isaiah (1995
(
– USA))
Trainspotting
p
g ((1996 – Britain))
Trainspotting
p
g
Traffic ((2000 – USA))
Traffic ((2000 – USA))
„
Add photo
Blow ((2001 – USA))
Clean (2004 – Canada, France,
Britain)
Trailer Park Boys
y ((2006 – Canada))
Gendered dichotomy
y between
drug users
SSexualized
li d
female
users
Criminalized,
C
i i li d
violent
male users
Women are punished for transgressing
gender roles and law
„
„
„
„
„
„
„
„
„
„
„
- suicide
s icide
- overdose
- sexual assault
- sex trade work
- violence/murder
- overdose
-child apprehension
pp
- death of children
- infants who exhibit NAS symptoms
- infertility
- death
Exceptions:
p
Women:
Saving Grace (2000 -UK)
Drugstore Cowboy (1989)
The Barbarian Invasions (2003 – Canada)
Trailer Park Boys (2006 -Canada)
Cl
Clean
(2004 –UK/Canada/France)
UK/C
d /F
)
H
Harm
R
Reduction
d ti S
Services:
i
Wh
Where
are you?
?
Harm Reduction and Women?
IImages off women who
h use illegal
ill
ld
drugs provide
id
a bounded set of meanings about drug use
and offer by implication
implication, a narrow set of
appropriate social responses to drug use.
The sense of crisis serves to legitimate punitive
social and legal interventions rather than
harm reduction initiatives.
Few positive representations of women and/or
harm reduction.
.
Visualizing a Century of fictional
film representations of women
and
dd
drugs: The
h Performance
f
off
Gender and Addiction
Susan Boyd, PhD, University of Victoria.
Funded by SSHRC