Spin the Bottle: Sex, Lies and Alcohol

What if methamphetamine, crack, and heroin were promoted and marketed in the same way as alcohol: i.e., associating health, sexual prowess, popularity, and happiness with a substance that when abused can lead to the exact opposites? In Spin the Bottle, passionate media and substance abuse critics Jackson Katz and Jean Kilbourne deliver rapid-fire indictments of the subculture of alcohol abuse that exists on many college campuses nationwide, interspersed with interviews from college students who relate their mostly unpleasant experiences with alcohol abuse (unwanted pregnancies, hospitalizations, public urination, and lots of puking). This is not a navel-gazing balanced look at the issue, but rather a crusading piece that blasts the makers of spirits for deceptive marketing (such as playing to the “manly man” who can hold his liquor, and the good girl/bad girl who studies hard by day and parties harder by night) to a willing and unsuspecting audience, many of whom have been influenced by the steady barrage of excessive behavior found on TV and in feature films. A sobering look at the truth behind the happy face that advertising and media put on a contemporary social disease, this is highly recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (C. Block)