WTF is with fictional pot-users!?

[Croissant]

I agree that they should show more scenes in movies with someone smoking a j like an after work beer.

As for Pinneaple Express if you think about the plot the only reason pot gets him in shit in the first place is because its the rarest kind that only one man can identify which is pretty silly so it is unfounded that pot was the cause of all the problems. Seth Rogans character in the movie is also rather level headed, given the circumstance, that just happens to be caught in a ridiculous situation where his only ally is the stereotype character.

 

[DrunkenMessiah]

Eh, true enough I suppose. Its just that Rogans's character was such a looser. The underage girlfriend, the crappy job, the general bumblyness. I dunno, I didn't finish it, I'm prolly being overly-harsh on the film. I'm just hating on it because its the most recent stoner movie I have seen with stereotypical pot-smokers. I guess it wasn't all that bad, just more of a straw-that-broke-the-camel's-back scenario ya know?

-DM

 

[slappyjack]

I think it's ironic that most of the other Judd Apatow movies treat pot in a more normal light than in Pineapple Express. I'm thinking about The 40-year-old Virgin and Knocked Up. Pot isn't the central theme, but it's certainly there and it's treated like something average people do here and there. Both movies are pretty realistic IMO.

Some day someone will make a great pot movie, but it probably wont be written by Seth Rogen.

 

[DrunkenMessiah]

You make a good point slappyjack!

Once again, my issue isn't with the depiction of pot smoking. Popular culture is occasionally perfectly happy to show it as the goofy harmless pastime that it is. I'm not irritated with the depiction of cannabis use, its habitual users that annoy me. I've only ever met a single absent-minded Cheech-and-Chong-style cannabis user IRL. Compare that to the dozens of dynamic and relatively level-headed habitual pot smokers I have come across over the course of my travels.

Again, I'm trying to gauge reactions here. I think that the massive complications added to the lives of otherwise legitimate people who happen to commit a (albiet harmless) felony on a daily basis. I think this dynamic could be very entertaining in fiction and have yet to see a good example.

Anyone else think so? If I pushed forward with my realistic-stoner-webcomic idea would any ICmag members read it?

 

[Trying-to-blend]

Pineapple Express on the other hand features completely absurd situations that the main characters get into because they are high. The whole thing apparently culminates in an intense action-film style shootout that is fought in a grow house. No real stoner has ever participated in such a thing! Sure, drug dealers shoot eachother over their products (sometimes being marijuana) all the time, but Pineapple Express was a depiction of pot-users that just didn't sit well with me at all. Perhaps the writers where trying to make fun of the fact that this absurdity went on because of the illegality of pot. A sort of social commentary on how ridiculous the ban on cannabis is. Two harmless stoners ending up in a gun fight because their chosen activity is arbitrarily illegal. That is something I can strongly endorse and will rant more on later. However, the way the two guys just bumbled through the plotline and behaved in general irritated me to no end. [/B]

Dude, Pineapple exrpess was NOT a pot movie. It was an ACTION COMEDY about two stoners. ACTION films are NEVER realistic. To be fair, up to WHEN HE SEES THE SHOOTING TAHT HE SAY BECAUSE OF HIS JOB NOT WEED, the portrayal was fairly accurate and not at all bad. He's holding down a job, living alone and has a girlfriend. Sure, he does a stupid rant, but he does his job well. The fact that he was a bit slovenly is more a reflection on the writer/actor, because he himself is that way. But IT'S A POSITIVE PORTRAYAL. And sure, we GROWING community might be very different, but you can't tell me the idiot dealer is a VERY real protrayal of a lot of white yuppie dealers.

And to counter your point:

THAT 70'S SHOW!

They NEVER get in trouble because they are stoned. whenever they do something REALLY stupid, they are drunk. And the ONLY times they get in trouble directly because of weed, it's autority related, making a point that the only negative consequences of weed are because it is illegal.

The thing is, what do you want? a movie about shit that happens because of pot, which would require an exagerated portrayal, or a movie about something else and the guy just happens to smoke pot, a la Entourage????

 

[DrunkenMessiah]

Arrr, ugh!

Ok, I should have quit whilst I was ahead, the movie references where OBVIOUSLY a bad idea. This thread was not supposed to be about my dissatisfaction with stoner films and I should have known better than to so heavily diss a film that does indeed have a positive social commentary concerning the ganjas. The film references where only used because they where most likely to be common ground with other users on this forum. Big Mistake!

I don't know what possesed me to think that people would actually muck all the way through my initial WALL-O-TEXT and get down to the bottom where I asked the question I was really concerned about. Everyone who has responded has pretty much entirely missed the point of my rant and I guess that is my fault for being too ranty and not being clear enough.

Next time I'll just ask the question outright. Thanks for the interest anyway guys!

-DM

 

[xOOx]

Steve Zissou: "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go on an overnight drunk, and in 10 days I'm going to set out to find the shark that ate my friend and destroy it. Anyone who wants to tag along is more than welcome."

Director: "That's an endangered species at best. What would be the scientific purpose of killing it?"

Steve Zissou: "Revenge."

xoox

 

[Trying-to-blend]

it wasn't the ranty part

it was the arguments used in the lead up to the question.

You're my type of person, hte connections you make in your head do not correspond to the ones in the other person's brain and you can't find a way to transmit it to them. It also tendr to happen a lot when talking about hypothetical subjects pertaining to intenginble things like society, psychology etcetera.

Don't worry, probly means higher IQ, but let me ask you something, whens the last time you got lucky on a first date? hahaha. and lawyers, poli sci or philosophy students and other fellow ranters don't count, hahahaha .

 

[hyposomniac]

Sadly, the caricatures presented in these films are pretty accurate representations of the majority of stoners I've met.

 

[DrunkenMessiah]

it wasn't the ranty part

it was the arguments used in the lead up to the question.

You're my type of person, hte connections you make in your head do not correspond to the ones in the other person's brain and you can't find a way to transmit it to them. It also tendr to happen a lot when talking about hypothetical subjects pertaining to intenginble things like society, psychology etcetera.

Don't worry, probly means higher IQ, but let me ask you something, whens the last time you got lucky on a first date? hahaha. and lawyers, poli sci or philosophy students and other fellow ranters don't count, hahahaha .

Hah, quite right TtoB! In the form of my writing this happens to me very often. This is because my writing, especially my rants, are about as honest as I ever get. I am not usually bothered about what impressions I might make on people and give little thought to how I might make what I'm thinking easier for them to understand.

Conversely, meet me IRL and this is not the case. Side effect of being a psycopath: you aren't too bothered with things like honesty or being true to yourself. Thus, I've actually had some pretty eventful first dates

It is remarkable what you can get people to do when you just tell them what they want to hear. Society is so easy for me to subvert that I often find myself openly laughing about it. As I am taking the guise of an anonymous forum user I have no issue with coming as close to 'bearing my soul' as I can get. That means that what I say and my various ranty arguments may not make much sense as the depths of my mind are so radically different from most peoples'. I'm impressed you spotted this TtoB, most people either decide that whatever I'm on about is too compliacated for them to understand or that I am simply full of shit. We must have a lot in common

-DM

 

[Moldy Dreads]

I can't stand movies like Pineapple Express and Half Baked, that make Canna smokers look like drunk dumb blondes, start the flaming..

 

[DrunkenMessiah]

No! Godamnit No!

Arrrrg! And other angry pirate noises!

Christ almighty, I didn't start this thread to go 'popular stoner movies are teh sucks!'
Note how the first words of the post where "Some parts of..." Pineapple Express, Half Baked and other such works of cinema are flawed films, not terrible ones. Pineapple Express actually had a pretty decent premise, I just think it could have worked perfectly as well (or perhaps a lot better) without the two main characters being as unoriginal as possible.

See; the characters, unoriginal as they may be, where played by some pretty talented/hilarious actors. The movie was fine, all of those movies are fine; flawed but all movies are. My complaint is about the the writing, the premise in nearly all of these movies is fine!

"Two connosueir pot-smokers stumble upon some incredibly unique ganja get super-stoned and are quickly wrapped up in the crazy illegal activities involved in the black marked that created it culminating in said stoners getting caught in a gun-fight"

"A stoner gets super-stoned and hilariously winds up in jail with a million dollar bail. His stoner buddies decide to raise the scratch to bail him out by selling medical ganja, on the way they run into a ton of great celeb cameos"

Et-FUCKING-Cetera

These all could have been great movies, but instead they are just good movies. People who have real-world experience with cannabis can certainly enjoy the movies as they are. They are a good laugh and are great to watch while high (as intended!)

I'm just bummed out because this symptom is so ubiquitous. It seems to permeate all forms of popular fiction. Crazy-stereotypical-stoner-hijinks fiction should be a genre to itself among lots and lots of other fiction that contains more realistic stoners/cannabis encounters. The influence of THC is common throughout the US, it prevails in almost every single social sect and yet this is all we get.

NOW: With all of that put down I still very much entertain the idea that this is just my opinion. I am a self-proclaimed unusual person and am never surprised when few people share my opinion. I'm asking all of you if the idea of more realistic ganja-fiction strikes your fancy or if I'm the only one who likes the idea. I'm not fuckin asking if Pineapple Express was a decent movie or not. Good god.

I'm sorry, I'm not a movie critic, my synapsis of Pineapple Express was not the point of the post. It is just a movie that I figure a lot of you have seen so that we could all get on the same page concerning what I was referring to: stoners in fiction!

-DM

 

[Moldy Dreads]

Yeah, they suck!