Should Hollywood sober up? New research shows drinking in films causes drinking in kids

Could you imagine watching The Hangover only instead of it being a film about four guys who get absolutely rat-arsed, it’s a calm, sober affair. We imagine it’d probably be about as funny as having to repeat your entire secondary and third level education for some reason.

The bad news is that if Hollywood bows to new pressure about drinking scenes in films, movies like The Hangover could vanish.

The Irish Independent reports today that experts have said watching films in which actors are drinking heavily can increase the risk of a child becoming an underage drinker. Yep. Apparently kids are getting way too impressionable, thus resulting in them spoiling the fun for the rest of us. Damn pesky kids.

Experts say that teenagers who have seen lots films that show scenes of crazy nights out and boozy antics are twice as likely to start consuming alcohol than teenagers who only watched a few.

Um…correct us if we’re wrong, but isn’t there this amazing thing called censorship which means that certain films, such as The Hangover have an age restriction? Why don’t parents just be more careful with what they allow their kids to go and see?

Anyway, the researchers have said that parents need to monitor the films their kids are watching and that Hollywood needs to sober up and start phasing out its drinking scenes, like it has when it comes to smoking scenes.

The team, which are made up of various researchers from a number of US university, liken American films to the flu virus and claim that it quickly spreads risky drinking behaviour all around the globe. So basically, it’s not our fault and we should just blame America for the fact that there’s a lot of underage drinking happening in Ireland at present.

Hmm…granted there may be a problem and Hollywood may cause some of it, but surely these researchers are jumping the gun a little bit…