Behind the Video: Normalizing the Truth
This video remixes found footage to expose the way that entertainment media normalizes illicit substance use. Normalization media generally occurs when a theme or topic is repeatedly broadcasted until it infiltrates societal culture and becomes a part of the mainstream ideology. Nearly every piece of entertainment media presents drugs as overly-casual and simplified; this is especially harmful to teens and young adults who have limited real life experience encountering drugs and the media they consume attributes qualities of euphoria and curiosity to experimenting with substances. This video addresses the interest that individuals — specifically moldable teens and young adults — take to drugs following repeated exposure to normalization media that lacks nuance highlighting the reality of addiction and drug related themes.
With this audience in mind, the video provides statistics and testimonies that correct the attitudes towards drugs presented by entertainment media. There are three statistics relating to the connection between drugs and homelessness, likeliness of addiction, and increasing fentanyl deaths in California specifically. By contrasting the direct imagery that leads to curiosity in illicit substances and the testimony of the individuals who are affected by addiction and drug issues, it is immediately clear that the common cultural framing of drugs is utterly incomplete and inaccurate.
Even though entertainment media does picture these negative effects at times, the narrative taken away is what people want to see: the curious, aesthetic, and spontaneous side to drug use. Though HBO’s Euphoria includes scenes from Rue’s relapses and overdoses, the popular takeaway is that “drugs are kinda cool,” as she states in the video. Media may make an effort to show the well-rounded harm in drug use, but so much saturation of drug-curious content overrides the takeaways that overdose scenes elicit. In Hua Hsu’s article “What Normalization Means,” he states: “[Normalization] resides in the way that we speak, in the ideas that get refined and reworked and encoded in ordinary words until they seem harmless enough.” This is exactly how shows like Euphoria work to achieve their normalization powers, as the themes of drugs are repeatedly presented episode after episode as likable characters go about their lives, until they themselves become icons that are worthy of emulating for viewers. The “Euphoria” lifestyle is one of cult following at this point, and not for the accurate depiction of drugs, but the romantic version, regardless of the show’s depiction of each.
This theory on normalization in relation to drugs pervades into the music we consume, conversations we have, and even books we read. A societal rejection of this narrative and massive cultural awareness for the true danger and harm that illicit substances present is not just needed, but an urgent issue. In the remix video, this call to action is presented with the transition from entertainment to news media covering homelessness, slippery slopes, and the Fentanyl crisis. To present this accurately I surveyed YouTube for first person testimonies and found credible reports on drug statistics. From here I refined and organized these sources until I was left with the most revealing sources to include.
Videos that challenge the societal “norm” — as created by the normalization media behind it — are an invaluable resource in correcting the narrative. In watching this video, viewers realize their personal indoctrination under entertainment media and their capacity to overlook real life facts; after dawning this realization, viewers can think critically about the depictions of drugs and addiction in media, furthering advances towards a societal attitude that accurately addresses illicit substance use. People need to read between the lines of what the media chooses to see, and what they see for themselves.
Sources:
Celstial Fears 