When Sex and the City was THE show for the modern woman, I was as transfixed as anyone. Cosmopolitans, casual sex, and NYC fashion? Yes please! The Cosmo became my drink of choice those early years of my 20’s, only occasionally substituted for the — wait for it — Manhattan. Cause, wink wink, I’m so sophisticated.
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It was the early 2000s and women’s liberation was in. Who needs a man when you could juggle several at a time? Bridget Jones Diary added an adorable and playful element to the single drunk hopeless romantic side of womanhood. Then there was The Good Wife, Mad Men and Grey’s Anatomy, all of which reverberated this message that we can safely binge alcohol with few or no ramifications. Alcohol is sexy. Everyone does it.
I’ll never forget the Friends story arc about “Fun Bobby,” Monica’s alcoholic boyfriend who, it turned out, was only fun when he was drinking. Once he quit, Monica realized sober Bobby was a drag so she dumped him. At the time I thought this was hilarious, of course, but now I see this kind of subliminal messaging that fed us all.
When I quit drinking in December 2017, I remember feeling troubled by the drinking on Game of Thrones and Dead to Me, specifically. I had to stop watching both shows because they triggered me to no end. But I also, for the first time, started noticing the way media portrayed alcohol. Suddenly my appreciation of Olivia Pope in Scandal felt less driven by her smarts and cunning and more steeped in her ability to do it all with a glass of merlot in her hand. If she could look that sexy and glamorous with a nightly need for wine, surely my behavior wasn’t so bad.
Sadly, a penchant for wine was the ONLY thing I ever had in common with Olivia Pope. Alcohol never made me clever, funny or the least big glamorous. After a few drinks, my lazy “s” entered conversations and it wasn’t pretty. I remember calling my aunt after a Saturday afternoon at the bar and her gasping “Celeste, are you OK???”
I also lost the ability to communicate with anyone beyond a few simple topics. I repeated myself. I spoke in circles and I lost track of who was saying what. I started becoming a quiet drunk, specifically because when I opened my mouth I made a fool of myself. Despite what Carrie in Sex and the City had me believe, I looked and sounded ridiculous under the influence, but who wants a TV show about a drunk woman cowering in the corner every night?
Alcohol has been bedfellows with Hollywood since the beginning of show business, mostly to set the tone of a scene. Romance and film noir both leaned on alcohol as a prop that helped tell the story. In later years, I think of TV sitcoms in the 80’s and 90’s — mainly Married with Children and The Simpsons — with the dead-beat dad; a beer in one hand and the other down his pants. Or Cheers, based in a bar, where several of the characters were dads and husbands but doing everything they could to drink away the witching hour away from home. Watching these shows as a kid felt harmless, funny even. But I can look back now and appreciate the subtle messaging around the mental load and default parenting (if you choose to look at this way). Unlike Olivia Pope, I don’t think anyone watched Homer drinking his Duff beer and thought, “Now that is a sexy badass right there.”
When I watch TV or movies now, I notice alcohol is still everywhere. It no longer triggers me; if anything I find it interesting to see if and how alcohol plays a harmless or darker narrative in the storyline. I remember watching the Netflix series’ Maid and The Queen’s Gambit and being thrilled with the way both shows cleverly built on alcohol and addiction almost like supporting characters.
Add recovery series to the mix, such as Single Drunk Female and Louder Milk and we see entire storylines based on people navigating sobriety in our alcohol-fueled society. I hope the trend continues with more characters who have complex relationships with alcohol, are sober for reasons other than being stereotypical alcoholics, and showcasing the very real and unsexy realities of hangovers, health consequences and broken families as a result of their drinking. But in the meantime, I’m overjoyed with watching narratives around alcohol shift in real time.
When the Sex and the City reboot came out a few years ago, I hoped for a new angle around alcohol. The show had an opportunity to revisit the role alcohol played in the series and rewrite it, make fun of it, or even critique it. Instead, they lazily played out a supporting story arc about Miranda having a drinking problem and seemingly overnight being a loud and proud woman in recovery. To watch Carrie drink so much in an earlier scene that she threw up on a date, but with no discourse on why her drinking was harmless fun but Miranda wore the token alcoholic card made my shake my head in disbelief. Some people will just never get it.
The media has come a long way in portraying addiction and recovery but we still have a ways to go. It will take more writers, directors and talent in Hollywood with nuanced experience on these topics to keep the messaging going the right direction.
Have you bought my book, It’s Not About the Wine: The Loaded Truth Behind Mommy Wine Culture? Buy it here. And please leave a review on Amazon when you’re finished!
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