Drunk History

Last month the web series “Drunk History” was launched as a new television series by Comedy Central.  This weekly, half-hour series features historical re-enactments that are narrated by drunk storytellers who struggle to tell the story. “Drunk History” is just one example of a recent, more overt trend in television drinking.  

“Drunk History” fans rave that the show is hilarious, and all in good fun. After all, who doesn’t enjoy a good laugh?  Unfortunately the normalization of heavy drinking in pop culture, whether on television, in movies, videos, or in popular song lyrics, is prevalent in today’s society.  This has created social and cultural norms that influence how much people drink, how they drink, and levels of alcohol-related harm. Too often those that are impacted the most by the normalization of heavy drinking are children, youth, and young adults.

In a study of young adult males, alcohol portrayal on television was shown to affect actual drinking behaviour, and a recent report on alcohol portrayal in the movies found youth who watched a lot of movies that featured alcohol were twice as likely to start drinking compared to their peers. So what’s the answer?  As a starting point we need to acknowledge that the normalization of heavy drinking in popular media plays a significant role in the culture of alcohol in society, on consumption patterns, and the level of alcohol-related harm that follows.  Only then will we be able to start changing the current culture and perhaps in doing so, re-write our own history.