Killing the Lazy Stoner

By Reid Booker on May 20, 2013

Marijuana has been in the news a lot lately.  People are talking about the plant now more than ever due to the legalization movement taking place across the country with Colorado and Washington fully legalizing it, among dozens of other states making it available medicinally or just decriminalizing it in general.  It is quite clear that legally speaking, marijuana is becoming much more mainstream and accepted than it ever has been before.  However, this new found kind of acceptance isn’t exclusive to the US state legislative branches, it is also true for Hollywood and our culture’s attitude toward marijuana.

Pot, dope, dro, chronic, mary jane, stanky dank, skunk-unk, weed, schwag, grass, goofy boots, or whatever it is you like calling marijuana has always been an element in film and television since forever.  One classic example is Sean Penn’s character Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High.  He plays the role of the lovable, goofy, and lazy stoner that represents all the cliches we know about marijuana.  That is why it’s illegal after all, right? It makes you be like Sean Penn so it is obviously really bad for you.  This has always been the classic attitude  our culture has had toward pot.  Whether it is Topher Grace toking it up on That 70′s Show will all his buddies or Sean Penn hot-boxing his classic VW van, it is clear that marijuana is for lazy, goofy, underachieving children with no real responsibilities.

A bunch of dangerous drug users

source: www.fanpop.com
A group of dangerous drug abusers

source: twitter.com
Dangerous drug user/criminal

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lately there has been a monstrous resurgence of pot culture in film and television, I am not even going to bring up music and how much they love it.  The revealing of Obama’s Choom gang in high school happened; we as a country learned that our commander in chief was most assuredly a blazed out-of-his-mind pothead on the reggie in high school, dude.  It’s becoming easier to find media where main characters partake in the “magic dragon.”  From Mark Wahlberg hittin’ the bong over 1,000 times in Ted, to the goofballs in Workaholics, or even little innocent Mr. Frodo (I mean Elijah Wood) ripping the homemade water bottle bong with his dog in FX’s Wilfred multiple times an episode.  These are just a few examples, but I have a word limit to adhere to so I will not press on.  Not only that, but in children’s television shows such as Regular Show, clocks and VCR’s in the cartoon commonly have the time “4:20″ pictured on them.  Pot culture is basically everywhere all over your TV always.  There is no escape.

In most of these examples pot is just a funny thing the characters do because they are goofy and weird as it has always been.  A few stand out, though.  In Wilfred, Elijah Wood plays a burnt out, guilt ridden lawyer who befriends his neighbors dog and smokes weed with him all day.  In most shows potheads don’t look or behave like Elijah Wood, and they aren’t lawyers either.  In HBO’s Bored to Death a 60 year old Ted Danson is the eccentric editor of a large, successful magazine who runs around with Zach Galifianakis and Jason Schwartzman smoking weed and solving crimes.  Again we see a character who is successful, lucrative, well respected, an intellectual, and a pot smoker.

source: fordopepurposesonly.blogspot.com
He used to be a doctor  and now he is just another filthy pot smoking criminal.

 

With marijuana entering the mainstream it is apparent that our collective attitude toward pot in America is drastically distancing itself from traditional thought.  It isn’t that hard to turn on the TV and find some show where characters, who are well adjusted with no major character faults or problems, use marijuana.  Almost like role models, but for stoners.  Not that those never existed, maybe you’ve heard of the Beatles or President Obama, but it is refreshing to see that our cultural attitudes are still something we can malleate.  It is high time we amend our feelings toward marijuana whether we like it or not.

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