Points is delighted to welcome Jocelyn Szczepaniak-Gillece, associate professor of English and film studies and director of film studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, to talk about her recent book, Movies Under the Influence.
Movies Under the Influence is "a cultural history of the enduring relationship between film spectatorship and intoxicating substances," available for purchase now through University of Minnesota Press.
Please tell readers a little bit about yourself
I’m a cultural historian of American film exhibition and spectatorship, which means I think about moviegoing and what it means to be a viewer. I think about film as a major discourse in American culture; I’m less interested in the text itself than in how it works in a larger context. I think the movies tell us quite a bit about how we imagine ourselves and our positions as citizens, as consumers, and even as dreamers of a better world. I work as an associate professor of English and Film Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where I also direct the Film Studies Program.
What got you interested in the history of alcohol, drugs, and pharmacy?
I love discourse analysis and alcohol, drugs, and pharmacy have infinitely fascinating historical discourses. They function so much like the movies: they are both vice and balm, both addiction and cure. The movies are an exercise in contradiction and so are alcohol, drugs, and pharmacy. Overall, I’m quite attracted to objects that are ultimately unsolvable. I don’t think of history as a puzzle but rather as a constant unfolding of a massive and rich tapestry.
What motivated you to write this book specifically?
I wrote an article about smoking in the movie theater that really got me interested in the ways substances affect spectatorship. I also watched as alcohol became ubiquitous in the American theater and that seemed so very strange to me—in what world does a social lubricant make sense in a place where you’re supposed to be quiet? The theater isn’t just a locus of viewing; it’s a chamber of pedagogy, of indoctrination, of ideology, of democracy, of capitalism, of transcendence. And the ways we imagine all of those discourses are deeply affected by the ways we imagine substance use. Why do intoxicating substances and the movies have such a troubled yet companionable history? Why do they walk together? Those are questions that percolated for me over the past eight or so years and led to the completion of this book.
Explain your book in a way your bartender won't find boring.
Why is there such a deep affinity between cigarettes and movie theaters? How did it become socially acceptable to drink at the movies? How have federal and local law enforcements squeezed their way into theater spaces? And why are some movies known as the best ones for tripping? Movies Under the Influence takes on the often surprising relationships between intoxicating substances and moviegoing and what they reveal about one another.
Did you uncover anything particularly interesting or surprising during your work on this project?
Oh yes, quite a lot! I’ll just mention one, which is the history of Fantasia’s rerelease in 1969-1970 and its deep ties to psychedelic drugs. I had heard from people alive during that time that Fantasia was a great movie to watch on LSD. I never really understood this; Fantasia itself isn’t that psychedelic and honestly I always found it trite and boring. Why would you want to drop acid and watch Mickey Mouse fight a bunch of brooms? When I looked into it, I uncovered that it wasn’t really about acidheads “discovering” Fantasia as they did Fantastic Voyage or Juliet of the Spirits. Instead, it was about a canny marketing campaign that Disney embarked upon in an attempt to finally turn a profit on the movie. What this tells us is that the ways in which drugs and moviegoing fit do not just spring up from the counterculture. Rather, the counterculture and corporate culture co-constitute one another. This is something that historians of alcohol, drugs, and pharmacy already know well, but I’m excited to make this point to readers in multiple other disciplines.
What do you think is the most important takeaway from your book?
I hope this book adds a bit to a beautiful lesson that Walter Benjamin taught us: what at first glance might seem like detritus—substances, movie theaters, jokes, ephemera—is actually a trove of secrets with thrilling revelations about humans and history and power and transcendence. History isn’t just about canonical objects of study; it’s also about the weird, the absurd, and the odd.
Has this research led to your next endeavor—what else are you working on?
Yes! While the next project isn’t about alcohol, drugs, or pharmacy per se, it is about using the tools from that kind of analysis in new ways. I’m working on a project about spectatorship in the era of streaming and its ties to models of the mind. Alcohol, drugs, and pharmacy history is always invested in how we understand the mind; in addition, spectatorship is frequently couched in a rhetoric of addiction. I have a new article coming out soon through Medicine on Screen (https://medicineonscreen.nlm.nih.gov/) to accompany the wonderful short The Relaxed Wife (1957), a marketing film for the mild tranquilizer Atarax, that may be of interest to other historians of alcohol, drugs, and pharmacy. Thinking about the long history of the word ataraxia and its deployment for the name of a postwar pharmaceutical targeted to, among others, traumatized vets really got me thinking about ancient models and their lasting effects.
Based on your research and experience, what do you see as the future of the field (of alcohol, drugs, and pharmacy history)?
The field is so exciting right now! So many people are getting interested in how we understand the position of alcohol, drugs, and pharmacy in broader culture. Writers like Mike Jay have given us splendid models for this kind of approach; I love his work so, so much and hope that more researchers look to him as a way to move beyond the false spectrum of apologia and condemnation and toward expansive critical analysis. I think a wider array of people are beginning to recognize the ideological underpinnings of alcohol, drugs, and pharmacy and what they can tell us about all manner of cultural elements. I hope that means a surge in archival preservation, like the amazing work that’s being done at the American Institute of the History of Pharmacy (https://aihp.org/), and a recognition of the incredible historical research that has been happening for years.