Via Atrios, I read last night this moral panic that struck me as one of the funnier ones I’d read in a long time. It’s about the presence of (gasp!) alcohol in the latest Harry Potter movie. Apparently, the British are supposed to pretend that they have the same furtive attitudes toward teenage drinking that Americans have. Because contrary to what the article implies, high school age kids drinking in movies are not unknown in American culture—-every teenage comedy I’ve seen has at least one scene of an all-night blowout party where everyone gets totally wasted and stupid, because there are no adults around. But we’re supposed to be worried about the Harry Potter movies, because they show the heroes engaging in responsible alcohol use, and the adults around them don’t melt down into total panic attacks about it.
It’s true that in the Harry Potter books, alcohol is everywhere, much like it is in the real world. That’s always been the charm of the books, that the magical happenings blend in with normal human behavior. (Which is why the ending where everyone marries their high school sweetheart was so jarring, because it was an unrealistic touch in a generally realistic characterization pattern.) The characters do knock a few back at the pub, toast their fallen comrades, and drink at parties. They are also 16 years old in this movie, in a wizarding world where 17 is the age of adulthood in a country where the drinking age is 16/18, depending on the circumstances. In the 6th and 7th books, we’re supposed to imagine characters in that gray area between adolescence and adulthood, and drinking alcohol is a normal part of that phase of life. There’s no sense that Rowling applauds irresponsible drinking. There’s only one scene where characters get stupid drunk, and the point of that is that they’re stupid to do so, because then one of them is exploited by Harry to get information out of him. Telling kids that alcohol loosens lips doesn’t strike me as an endorsement of getting stupid drunk.
I’m not trying to imply that Britain doesn’t share some of the problems with binge drinking that the U.S. does. But there’s no particular reason to believe that the U.S. system, where kids can’t drink in public or around adults until 21, so they instead choose to drink almost exclusively in situations where getting absolutely hammered is expected, is any better. Nor do I think that lying to children, as this NY Times article suggests you do, is the best way to teach responsible habits.
“I hope parents can talk to their kids and tell them even though Harry Potter made that seem fun, that it isn’t O.K.,” said Dr. Welsh, the author of a 2007 article about alcohol use in the Harry Potter series, published in The Journal of Child and Adolescent Substance Abuse.
Hey, I don’t have a degree in this subject, so what do I know? But it seems to me that if you tell kids that the movie made drinking “seem” fun, in hopes they think it’s not fun, they’re going to realize the first time they drink and it is fun that you lied to them. And they’ll start to wonder what else you lied about.
I’m far from the only one who thinks the prohibition approach to drinking, especially for the college-aged set, is an epic failure. People who are closest to the subject also are beginning to really think that setting the drinking age at 21 is failing in its stated mission to protect younger people.