Portraying underage drinking in television media is something that requires a bit of nuance for it to really be effective. The intended purpose of these portrayals—trying to get teens to think twice about drinking while underage—is rarely achieved.
It probably doesn't help that all of these episodes were written by middle-aged writers. It's difficult to really capture the mindset of a teenager in that type of situation when you're so many decades removed from experiencing it yourself. Plenty of other scenarios in sitcoms can be experienced by adults and children alike, and so these emotions and actions and decisions are universal. Underage drinking is not universal. Underage drinking stops when you reach a certain age. There aren't any 29-year-olds worrying about underage drinking on a Saturday night.
I've been wanting to write this blog post for years now (probably ever since I
posted this lazy bullshit on PoYB), and I feel like it's either now or never. Soon I'll be a decade removed from my own experiences drinking underage. I'll start to forget what it all really meant. So let's do this shit.
I've compiled seven episodes of television (mostly sitcoms) about underage drinking, and wrote about each one. I judged each episode on two criteria.
First, how
ACCURATE is the episode in portraying the phenomenon of underage drinking? Not everyone gets loaded off their first beer, not everyone acts like a loud, brash moron after two beers, not everyone tells their parents or lies to their parents in the same way. So, in other words, how true to life is the underage drinking? Is it fantastical, or subtle?
Second, how
JUDGEMENTAL are the characters in the show toward underage drinking? Underage drinking is not the worst thing in the world. We all do it, and we (mostly) survived. I value characters in the show who were able to understand that. Characters that had misgivings but were fair in their punishments, and were clear that they were only punishing so to make the teenage offender think about his/her actions, not because "alcohol is evil" or any of that. (The characters, of course, are vessels of the writers, directors, showrunners, etc., and so my judgment of a particular character can be counted as a judgment of the show itself as well.)
I'm not really sure if this exercise has a point, per se. I think I just really enjoy watching terrible '90s sitcoms try to tackle "sensitive" subjects. And there is no more sensitive subject here on Puke on Your Birthday than
drinking, right?!
"If You Can't Be with the One You Love..."
Episode 5x18
PLOT: The episodes starts with Cory and Topanga broken up, and Cory is hurting. There's a big party at some chick's house, but Cory wasn't invited because he's been too much of a sad sack. He shows up anyway, and ends up being the life of the party. But surprise! It was only because he was drunk the whole time! Because by the looks of it, Cory only needs like one ounce of whisky to get loaded! So anyways, him and Shawn are doing shots in the bathroom. Post-party, they pay some dude to buy them a sixer, they keep drinking, and then they piss on a cop car. Arrested. Cory's dad blames this whole debacle on Shawn, so then it turns into a whole separate issue of unfairly blaming the kid with the rough background. Even after Cory's dad apologizes, this is fuel for Shawn to continue drinking. He lives with his older brother, so there are plenty of beers in the fridge to drink. Shawn gets loaded all week (including in class!), acts in general like an asshole, abuses his girlfriend, etc. At the end of the day, we all learned a lesson. Shawn has alcoholism in his genes so he has to be
careful, especially as a teenager.
ACCURATE?: I'd argue that it started off accurate and then went completely off the rails. The fact that Cory, or any teen, would bring a fifth to a party to liven it up and make you the life of the party? Sure, I can absolutely buy that, because I
lived that shit. But the peeing on the cop car bit? No teenager, no matter how drunk, is going to do something that stupid, right? Right?! [
insert link of drunk Philly teen punching a police horse] Okay, but then the strong melodrama started with Shawn all of a sudden being an alcoholic. I don't really think it happens that way. No one is going to go from zero to 60 like Shawn did during this episode. It was a
little too much.
JUDGEMENTAL?: Yeah, it's a little judgmental, but mainly concerning the whole Shawn debacle that ends the episode. Shawn's older brother (whose name I'm too lazy to look up) gets super preachy at the end. I mean, I guess he's not wrong; their dad WAS an alcoholic, and so Shawn DOES have to be more careful. But the episode is really heavy handed about that lesson. I prefer the lesson from Cory's half of the episode, where he alleges that he is "cute" when drunk, but admits that, yeah, he should take a little easy with the boozing, at least while he's still in high school. (And,
in case the episode's messages weren't laid on thick enough...)
"I'm 'In' with the 'In" Crowd"
Episode 6x3
PLOT: This is the very first episode of
The Cosby Show I've ever watched in my life, and man, is it creepy watching this shit now. I'll admit though, I laughed at a few jokes. Cosby's deadpan delivery was spot on. Too bad he's a serial rapist in real life. ANYWAYS, Cosby's daughter Vanessa goes to a party, a boring one, and she and the other girls decide to liven it up by playing a drinking game. With bourbon! Smash cut to everyone rolling around the room, throwing up, generally acting like drunk teenagers are wont to do. Everyone is surprisingly responsible, though, and call their designated drivers (cabs, siblings) for a ride home. Vanessa's sister has a tough time of it, but eventually gets her home and into bed. It's immediately clear to Dr. and Mrs. Huxtable that Vanessa is fucked up. They punish her the next day by tricking her. The whole family plays the same "drinking game," except Vanessa doesn't know until the very end that it's shots of iced tea. Gotchya!
ACCURATE?: I'd actually have to say yes. At some point I made note that the young actresses at the party seemed to be "overacting," but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the acting was probably accurate. Sixteen-year-olds tend to overact in real life after two or three shots of bourbon. The scene where Denise tries to drag Vanessa's drunk ass upstairs into bed is similarly overacted and yet so fucking accurate. Having to deal with a drunk load is a rite of passage.
JUDGMENTAL?: Surprisingly... not at all. Zero preaching from the Huxtables regarding Vanessa's actions. They are disappointed, for sure, but at the same time seem to realize that getting drunk at sixteen is indeed a rite of passage. All they do is play some tricks on her while she's hungover. It's even acknowledged that there might be some valid reasons that Vanessa would drink in the first place: 1) that she feels pressure from being in such a normal family with high expectations, 2) that she was bored. AND none of this is sappy or overbearing. While it's never condoned, the underage drinking is understood. Boy, it's a shame that the least judgmental depiction of this issue had to come from the show starring the women-drugging rapist.
Degrassi: The Next Generation
"Message in a Bottle"
Episode 2x16
PLOT: Goddamn, do I love
Degrassi. This whole exercise might have been a big excuse just to rewatch another episode of this goddamn show. I'm going to type out the plot assuming that you are as big a
Degrassi fan as I am, and don't need to be walked through who is who. Okay, so—we start with Emma tutoring Sean in his slum apartment, where he lives with his brother. This scene establishes that Sean lives a tough lower-class life. He even has a hole in his sock! Later, Sean and Jimmy make peace over a prior incident (fuck, I can't believe I can't remember what they were fighting about), but so Jimmy invites Sean to his banger that night (Jimmy's parents are out of town). Before Sean goes to that, he's gotta suffer through a corny sushi dinner with Emma and her Mom (Spike) and Stepdad (Snake). Sean feels awkward because he's not used to these upper-middle-class families treating him all nice and whatnot, so in response, Sean drinks a bunch of sake(?) from Spike's liquor cabinet. Sean goes from being awkward to being a drunk dick, and exits the dinner to head over to Jimmy's. (Jimmy is Drake the rapper, by the way). Like Cory in
Boy Meets World, Sean is the life of the party at first. But then he spots the liquor cabinet, and grabs a bottle. Emma
shows up, sees Sean drunk, gets pissed, they tussle, Sean drops the
bottle and effectively ends the party because Jimmy's pissed that Sean wasted his parents' vodka. (Also, some other bullshit happens with Jimmy and Ashley, but it's not relevant to the drinking storyline.) Spike comes to pick up Emma and Sean. Sean admits he drank because he feels like a "loser."
ACCURATE?: Kind of. I appreciate the fact that the party scene at Jimmy's seemed like an accurate party that a ninth grader would throw. I'll even buy that Jimmy's reaction to the smashed liquor bottle would be accurate. While I personally tried not to freak out if something broke during my parties, I recall fondly freakouts from friends when, say, someone peed in a broken toilet or something. What I guess I'm struggling with, accuracy-wise, is whether Sean's episodic arc was legit. I don't doubt that a kid in eighth grade who's in his position would feel awkward when they're out of their element like Sean. But I don't know if turning to alcohol is actually a thing that kids would do here. ESPECIALLY right in the middle of a fucking dinner with your girlfriend's parents?
So brazen. I'm not saying it's never happened, but I am saying that it's rare, an overreaction.
JUDGMENTAL?: C'mon now, this is
Degrassi we're talking about. No judgement from the show, ever. I don't even think the lesson here had anything to do with drinking. Mainly, Emma (and, by extension, Spike) is concerned with Sean's self-sabotage, that he would wreck a dinner and then wreck a party just because he felt bad about himself. It was noted that Sean was wrong to drink in the first place, but the drinking was almost incidental to the larger point. No,
Degrassi played this episode with a deft hand. We would deal with the drinking on many more occasions in future
Degrassi episodes, and the show was usually way more heavy-handed with it.
"Tips for a Better Life"
Episode 7x16
PLOT: Holy hell, this was almost unbearable to watch. To start, almost two-thirds of the episode dealt with the exploits of Steve Urkel. Urkel launches a TV through the living room ceiling, and then transforms into his alter ego, Stephan Urquelle, to... raise money to fix the ceiling? ...by playing piano at a coffee shop? I cannot believe that people in the '90s actually watched this fucking shit. But, okay, so the drinking part of the episode concerned Eddie getting drunk at a frat house, and coming home. Carl (his dad) finds him drunk, and lays the smackdown. They have a stilted conversation that ends with Carl saying he's going to kick Eddie out of the house if this happens again. Of course, it happens again, and Carl stays true to his word, and kicks Eddie out. At the last minute (after a talking to by comedy relief-turned-serious Waldo), Eddie realizes his mistake, promises never to drink again, and is allowed to stay at home, in his father's warm embrace.
ACCURATE?: Split. The actions of Eddie are accurate; the reactions of Carl are not. Eddie is nineteen years old here, and so it makes sense that he would party at a frat house and get drunk. It would even make sense that he would come home, cocky, refusing to admit that he did anything wrong. Carl, however, does not react how a father of a nineteen-year-old would react, I think (maybe I was just lucky to have chill parents?). Carl is way over the top. Your son, who will be 21 in less than two years, and is currently a legal adult, comes home drunk twice and you want to boot him from the house? Damn, dude.
JUDGMENTAL?: 100% the most judgmental of any episode I watched. And I say this mainly based on the studio audience reactions, or lack thereof, in this episode. When Carl says shit like, "college isn't for 'party hardy,'" or "drinking will take you down a road with dead ends," the audience is dead silent. No laughs. In fact, when Carl bellows "I don't need a drink to have a good time, and neither do you!" the live studio audience fucking
claps and
cheers. They cheer again when Waldo (again, ostensibly the comic relief in most episodes) says "when you drink, you're a different person, and he's not my friend." The message is laid thick here: drinking is bad! Don't do it! When Eddie realizes he done wrong, the music is uplifting, father and some hug it out, and presumably, Eddie never drinks again. LAME.
"Just Say No Way"
Episode 3x21
[broken link, watch it on Netflix]
PLOT: Let's pretend the cold open never happened, okay? Can we all just pretend that Uncle Joey never accidentally ate a bubblegum sandwich? Thank you. We can also ignore the B-plot of Uncle Jesse playing guitar with the pep band at their high school dance, and the C-plot about Michelle being obsessed with "Baby Beluga." I'd be okay with that too. The meat of the episode concerns underage drinking. DJ and Kimmy are planning the school dance, and DJ wants to attend with this little jabroni named Kevin. Kevin (who appears to be seven years old) goes into the hallway with his friends during the dance, and cracks open some beers. Right there in the school hallway. DJ discovers this, gets upset at the beer and the fact that beer is then spilled on her, and for her troubles, the shitbirds call her "uncool." DJ, in response, grabs a beer and pretends to be "cool," saying shit like "oh, I need to be drunk to be cool! Look at me!" Etc. While she's making fun of these kids, Uncle Jesse sees the act, but thinks that she is ACTUALLY drinking and trying to be cool. It's all a misunderstanding, you see. So the episode turns into no one believing DJ that she was trying to prevent drinking. Finally, Kevin bites the bullet and fesses up to Danny, saying that DJ was doing the right thing. Jesse and DJ make nice. All is forgiven.
ACCURATE?: Nah, man. I find it hard to believe that thirteen-year-olds would be so fucking laissez-faire about cracking beers right outside the auditorium. And while I can see thirteen-year-olds like DJ being totally against the idea of drinking, I can't see her reaction being as overwrought as it was. I mean, if I'm thirteen and I see kids drinking at school, I don't confront them, I get the fuck out of there, ya know? That would've prevented the whole misunderstanding with Uncle Jesse from happening. The whole things plays false, almost like... an episode of
Full House.
JUDGMENTAL?: Yeah, man. But the rub is that everyone here is on the same page. DJ isn't arguing about whether she should be drinking or not. The conflict in the home only arises because of a misunderstanding. Since everyone is all on the same page, the show gets to make some broad, judgmental statements about drinking. Uncle Jesse even blames rock stars for sending the wrong message! Jeez. Then he says to DJ: "I'm proud of you for making the right decision." To which DJ replies: "It's not that hard to say no. Those kids were acting like idiots." Which, I mean, yeah, I agree, but still. Not much nuance here. It's almost like this was... an episode of
Full House.
"One for the Road"
Episode 2x14
PLOT: Becky is staying home with her friend to work on their history project while the rest of the family goes to grandmom's house. Becky says that she can handle being alone, and promises not to "burn the house down." Becky and friend, in the excitement of being left alone in the house, start exchanging stories about past drinking experiences. Becky ups the ante and mixes some cocktails with liquor from her parents' cabinet. First, there's the fear and anxiousness of starting to drinking. Then, there are the two fourteen-year-olds being drunk idiots and puking, etc. But Becky seemingly gets away with it, even when the rest of the family gets home. That is, until the friend's mom comes over to the house and blows the whistle on the whole affair. Becky gets yelled at, grounded, and Roseanne ends it by saying "We can't trust you anymore" (while Dan attaches a padlock to the liquor cabinet).
ACCURATE?: This is probably the most accurate of the seven episodes I watched. Everything rang true. It's true that Becky would want to experiment with alcohol for reasons of "being bored" (but, really, because you
could and it's scary and exciting to try it for the first time). It's true that the parents would be pissed. It's accurate the level at which Roseanne and Dan reacted; they didn't make broad statements about never drinking again, but they did take it seriously, and were pissed at Becky in an appropriate and believable way. Kudos.
JUDGMENTAL?: It wasn't really judgmental either. I mean, obviously it didn't condone fourteen-year-olds drinking. But the outrageous concern, that Becky was going to become a "boozer," came from the mouth of Becky's younger sister, indicating to me that the show was acknowledging this was an equally immature concern. The parents weren't even necessarily concerned with the drinking, because they probably were experimenting when they were fourteen as well. The main concern is that Becky lied to them and stole from them and ruined the trust they had in her. These are legitimate concerns for the characters and for the show. There was concern with the drinking too, but only because it was pointed out that "grown-ups drink for the wrong reasons," and so it was concerning that a fourteen-year-old would be doing the same. Damn, I was surprised how good this episode was at portraying this whole issue. Like
Cosby, this was the first episode of
Roseanne I ever watched. And like Cosby, it will probably be the only episode for now because of Roseanne's personal views and actions in real life. Too bad, because I really enjoyed this episode, and found it to lack judgment where it counted.
"Drinking and Driving"
Episode 4x10
[broken link, watch it on Peacock]
PLOT: Woo boy, this was almost as painful as the
Family Matters episode. I get that
Saved by the Bell was not made with 29-year-old douchebags in mind, but still. So word around school is that there is a toga party this Thursday night. The whole gang attends. The host is a football player, who is portrayed as so dumb that I can't even imagine how he dresses himself in the morning. Slater doesn't want to drink at first, but eventually is peer-pressured. He, in turn, peer pressures Kelly. Only Tori and Screech refrain from imbibing. Smash cut to everyone being "wasted." Zack decides to drunk drive Kelly's mom's car (a Mercedes!), of course, and (in a scene can only be described as the pinnacle of cheap '90s sitcom filming) drunk drives right into a tree. Everyone seems to be okay, and they tow it to Zack's house. The lies the kids have to tell the adults about the incident start to add up. Kelly has to pretend to be her mom on the phone to Zack's dad. Slater has to lie about his elbow injury. Screech has to... steal car parts from shop class? Etc. It's slapstick comedy, yo. Finally, it all comes crashing down, when the adults get together and realize that it's all bullshit. Plus everyone is so guilty about lying. Everyone is grounded by their respective parents. That's pretty much it.
ACCURATE?: I'm loathe to say yes, because the overall plot is stupid and nonsensical and takes too many wacky left turns to really be considered "accurate" as a whole. However, when you examine each individual scene, there's a decent amount of accuracy to go around. First, there's the toga party. People get drunk and act the appropriate amount of stupid. There are a few people who refrain but they don't make a big deal about it. Kids lie to their parents as much as they can to get away with a fuck-up. I can even personally attest to having experienced that sinking feeling when you realize that you told two different parents two different stories and now those parents are talking and you're fucked (sorry, Matt S., I shouldn't have let that 2007 lie spiral out of control like that). Points taken away, for sure, for the whole drunk driving thing. Sure, there are idiot high schoolers that drunk drive, but everyone these days knows that that shit is wrong. It's been sufficiently beat into our brains. You're not gonna find four high schoolers together who are all willing to get into a car with a drunk driver. Maybe it was different in the early '90s??
JUDGMENTAL?: Yup. The show allows no wiggle room here. Underage drinking is presented, in clear black and white, as BAD. There's peer pressure ("c'mon, it's just a beer!"). There's nonchalant drunk driving. There's the "aching guilt" of telling so many lies. There's a pissed dad yelling "You risked throwing away your life for a couple of beers, then you lied about it!" At no point is it explored why these kids might be drinking. At the end of the day, per
Saved by the Bell, drinking is WRONG, and you are
certainly going to lose your driving privileges over it. To be fair, the characters in this show were extraordinarily stupid, more so than Eddie and Becky and Vanessa combined. So maybe the judgment is warranted.
So maybe when I'm talking about whether a TV show is judgmental about underage drinking, I'm really judging the show myself, based on how appropriately they lay their judgment out on the table. None of these shows say "underage drinking is okay," and at the end of the day, I'll admit, it's not. But the punishment should fit the crime. If a parent acts irresponsibly with dealing with this (very common) issue of underage drinking, then they are just as bad. Cheers, then, to the parents, fictional or nonfictional, who understand that teenagers can fuck up, and can do stupid things, especially when it comes to alcohol, but who also understand that this is a way of life, and that there are certain logical ways of using these incidents to impart life lessons.
