Does the Harry Potter Movie Encourage Underage Drinking?
"Does Hogwarts have a drinking problem?" asks Tara Parker Pope in her New York Times column, Well. She reports that some parents, media watchdogs and alcohol counselors are concerned that these scenes may encourage children and adolescents to engage in underage drinking. "In scene after scene, the young wizards and their adult professors are seen sipping, gulping and pouring various forms of alcohol to calm their nerves, fortify their courage or comfort their sorrows," she writes. Harry Potter fans beg to differ, including my 13-year old daughter, Emily. Last night, when she called from camp and I mentioned this, she exclaimed, "Butterbeer doesn't have any alcohol or only a little bit! The only person to get drunk on butterbeer ever was Winky, and she drank like 20 of them, and everyone knows that elves are really small! " (As a dad, I'm impressed that she already has a good intuitive sense of the relationship between body weight, alcohol dose, and intoxication risk, let alone the tendency of certain elves with low self-esteem to fall victim to alcohol abuse.)
What's more surprising is that some addiction experts also find the controversy a little odd.
"Many parents were shocked and chagrined to see the extent to which
young people in the new Harry Potter movie casually consume alcohol,
both in the presence of adults and together without adult supervision,"
wrotes psychologist Stanton Peele, author of 7 Tools to Beat Addiction, in an email exchange. In truth, he continues, "there's evidence that where there's
more drinking (which is pretty clearly associated with lower drinking
ages) there are (a) fewer adolescent drinking problems, (b) fewer adult
drinking problems, (c) less alcohol-related mortality." Watching the "English-based Potter series", he continues, "makes us realize how much in
denial the rest of the supposedly civilized world is. Did you know that
the UK has a legal drinking age of 18, and 16 when food is served? And
this does not begin to tap Continental Europe, where 16-year-olds
calmly walk into bars and order drinks and drink at even earlier ages
with their families and in restaurants."
Classic alcohol studies have found that in countries where alcohol was consumed in family situations, often with meals, with a social stigma for public drunkenness--such as Italy in the 1950s--there was less alcoholism than in other cultures. Indeed, some experts consider the American model--keep kids away from alcohol until they are 21, make it a forbidden fruit, and then send them off to college with plentiful cars and bars--a recipe for binge drinking, let alone driving tragedies. Some have even argued that reducing the drinking age to 18 would reduce binge drinking. However, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and other groups passionately disagree.
So does Harry Potter have a drinking problem? Or does America have a problem creating an social and media environment where adolescents can learn to drink responsibly? What do you think? Post your comments!
--Bob Barnett
Follow us on Twitter
Classic alcohol studies have found that in countries where alcohol was consumed in family situations, often with meals, with a social stigma for public drunkenness--such as Italy in the 1950s--there was less alcoholism than in other cultures. Indeed, some experts consider the American model--keep kids away from alcohol until they are 21, make it a forbidden fruit, and then send them off to college with plentiful cars and bars--a recipe for binge drinking, let alone driving tragedies. Some have even argued that reducing the drinking age to 18 would reduce binge drinking. However, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and other groups passionately disagree.
So does Harry Potter have a drinking problem? Or does America have a problem creating an social and media environment where adolescents can learn to drink responsibly? What do you think? Post your comments!
--Bob Barnett
Follow us on Twitter
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I think that our 21 and over, puritanical bent encourages binge drinking and bad behavior with alcohol in young kids. I know that drinking quickly lost its allure once I was legally allowed to do so.
I am an American living in Europe right now where the drinking age is 16. I see much less binge drinking and more teenagers learning to pace themselves and drink responsibly. The difference is they are not getting behind the wheel of a car. They are taking public transport, bicycles or being driven by parents. It would never work in the states because of the dependance on cars.
I would have to agree. I have several family members that live in the UK and in the Carribbean and they do not have any of the stigma of drinking underage or binge drinking. I currenlty live in the US but have spent several months in other countries where the drinking age was 18 and public transportation is not looked down on. The appeal for drinking quickly disappeared and is actually encouraged by my family at family meals and social events with my parents.
I was under the impression that Butter Beer was much similar to Root Beer. with no alcohol content.