Am I the only person who thinks that the premise and marketing of Showtime’s series Weeds is incredibly inappropriate? Doing some research on the show online, I found nearly all positive glowing reviews. I have to admit that I have not actually seen the show, since I don’t get cable and rarely watch TV — there’s just not enough hours in the day.
But since Weeds first came out last year, the premise has really irked me. It’s about a suburban mom who becomes a pot dealer to make ends meet after her husband passes away without leaving any life insurance. Yeah, that’s a character we want people to identify with. The preview for the coming season (accessed from the link above) shows the main character Nancy driving through town with everyone smiling at her as she leaves rainbows and flowers in her wake. Who wouldn’t want to be her?
Today I saw that the Golden Globe-winning and Emmy-nominated show, which is starting its second season next week, has a new marketing campaign (via Adrants). The campaign includes the ad pictured above in Rolling Stone magazine, which has an embedded marijuana-scented strip, with the copy “Catch the buzz!” next to it. They will also have ice cream trucks called “Weeds Munchie Mobiles” that will pass out Weeds merchandise and brownies at concerts and other events, and street vendors handing out coffee in Weeds cups.
The only grown-up I could find saying anything negative about the campaign is Tom Riley, the director of public affairs for the US Office of National Drug Control Policy:
In addition to reciting statistics about marijuana use (“There are more teens in treatment for marijuana than for alcohol dependence—is that funny?”), Riley chided the Rolling Stone promotion as all too retro. “Unless they’re going for the over-50 demographic, it sounds like their marketing department might be a little out of touch,” Riley said. “Maybe some baby boomers still find this kind of thing edgy, but young people don’t.”
While I don’t think the marketing department being out of touch would have been my main point, at least someone has spoken out about this.
Why is it okay for Showtime to make a show glamorizing pot smoking and drug dealing, when they would probably never portray smoking tobacco or the tobacco industry as a positive thing? The problem with this type of show — no matter how critically acclaimed it is — is that by creating sympathetic characters who are engaging in these unhealthy and illegal behaviors, they normalize the behaviors and make them seem like something everybody else is doing. Television plays a huge role in how people construct their perceptions of reality and appropriate behavior.
Even if the Showtime execs and others involved in the program can justify it by saying that it’s only on late at night after the kids are asleep, the ubiquitous ads for the program laud a drug dealer as “her highness” and use the tagline “putting the herb into the suburbs.” It could just as well be promoting the use and sale of marijuana as promoting the show.
After this posting and my previous one about Jack in the Box’s stoner commercial (which has incredibly been the most-viewed post since I started the blog), maybe I seem like a square old fuddy-duddy. I’m okay with that. Maybe the Showtime execs don’t mind if their kids smoke pot and deal drugs, but I do.
Nedra helps nonprofits and public agencies create positive change on health and social issues through social marketing and transmedia storytelling strategies at Weinreich Communications since founding the company in 1995. She helps organizations make a difference for the populations they serve by strategically designing programs that draw on state-of-the-art behavior change techniques, digital media approaches and the power of stories. 
“They would probably never portray smoking tobacco or the tobacco industry as a positive thing.”
Let’s swap analogies to alcohol… TV often diplays alcohol as a good thing. Alcohol consumption isn’t always an “unhealthy” behavior, and it’s not clear that smoking (or eating) marijuana with some moderation is always an “unhealthy” behavior. TV has plenty glorified purveyors of alcohol — think “Cheers.” Do you think the social cost of Cheers encouraging folks to drink to an unhealthy level was greater than the positive entertainment value of that show??
I agree that Cheers made excessive drinking (at least in the character of Norm) look like a socially normal behavior, and I won’t deny that it was one of the best shows on TV at the time. On the other hand, the show made a lot of references to using a designated driver when a character had drunk to excess. Not having seen the show Weeds, I don’t know whether they depict the negative consequences or do anything to mitigate the effects of smoking pot (e.g., not showing people driving while stoned).
The difference between the two shows is that selling and smoking pot are illegal, while drinking alcohol is not.
The truth of the matter is that from the dawn of humankind we have sought to alter our consciousness. We do it by variety of means, but society judges which are appropriate in a totally arbitrary fashion. If you compare the incredible social violence wreaked by alcohol compared to pot’s minimal impact, you have to concede that our government banned the wrong substance. Add to that the cost of our completely counter-productive drug policy and one had to wonder about the virtue of any substance “prohibition”.
So complaining about Weeds (a show you admit you’ve never seen) sounds a little prissy and ill-informed. I suggest lighting up a fatty and getting your chill on.
Regardless, nice blog you’ve got there.
“The problem with this type of show — no matter how critically acclaimed it is — is that by creating sympathetic characters who are engaging in these unhealthy and illegal behaviors, they normalize the behaviors and make them seem like something everybody else is doing.”
Built into that argument is the assumption that responsible adults can”t use marijuana in a healthy manner. Putting aside the health effects of inhaling smoke, which I agree are less than desireable, the fact is that there are millions of adults in this country who use marijuana ina responsible fashion with no ill effects on their lives, yet you brand them as not “normal.” It’s about time that we recognized that marijuana is not going away and is no more harmful if used in moderation than alcohol.
it baffles me how verbose you can be on a subject of which you admit to know next to nothing about. the length at which you describe the evils of a t.v. show you’ve never seen is disgusting. your lengthy opinion is based on nothing but hearsay and assumption. you should be ashamed.
So, Anonymous #3, enlighten me as to what I got wrong. I’ve seen the ads, so my comments on that campaign are based on first-hand knowledge. Can you tell me how the show is avoiding glamorizing an illegal and unhealthy activity? I really would like to find out that I am wrong about that.
“Why is it okay for Showtime to make a show glamorizing pot smoking and drug dealing, when they would probably never portray smoking tobacco or the tobacco industry as a positive thing?”
Perhaps its because cigarette smoking kills hundreds of thousands of people every year, while, they say anyway, there still has yet to be a death recorded from the responsible use of marijuana.
Recreational drugs have informed and influenced American culture since its inception (Take a peek at Martin Torgoff’s “Cant Find My Way Home” for more on this); I see nothing wrong with a television program that makes light of that and, frankly, to make an issue of the legality of the activities portrayed in the show misses the point. Last I checked, murder was illegal, too, but I don’t see you making this argument about “The Sopranos”
I see “Weeds” as an inquisition into morality and values, which I find refreshing set against a media landscape that leaves little room for such exploration. Perhaps actually watching the show would be to your benefit — I would imagine it to be difficult to do any real analysis based on the commercials you’ve seen.
Jeffrey,
Given that this blog is about marketing, I am talking about the show from the perspective of how they are marketing it. I have seen the ads (we have a huge billboard for Weeds that the kids see every day when we drive home from school). They’re too young to get the drug references, but a tween or teenager could figure it out. I am less concerned that adults are watching and enjoying the show than the fact that they are promoting it in a way that makes it attractive to kids (Weeds ice cream trucks, scratch and sniff strips, brownies). Obviously, we are not going to agree on whether smoking pot is a good or bad thing, but hopefully you can see that the marketing itself has an effect whether or not one sees the show. And, yes, if I saw ads for the Sopranos that were glorifying killing people, I would probably write about those too. Haven’t seen them yet. Thanks for your comment.