Showing posts sorted by relevance for query movies & tv. Sort by date Show all posts
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Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Tokin Women in Movies & TV


A list of women who smoke weed in the movies and TV:

1935 - A 13-year-old Judy Garland sings "La Cucaracha" in a short film. 

1936 - Reefer Madness and Marihuana trumpet the dangers of women on weed.

1939 - Marjorie Main's character keeps exclaiming, "Smokin' Oakum!" in The Women. (Hope Emerson does the same in 1952's Westward the Women. Oakum is the short fibers of hemp.)

1949 - Lila Leeds, the starlet who was arrested with Robert Mitchum for marijuana, stars in She Shoulda Said No.

1958 - Holly Golightly tries pot in the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's (but only uses retail therapy in the 1971 movie).

1959 - Susan Hayward wins an Oscar for her portrayal of femme fatal Barbara Graham in I Want to Live. Jazz, and marijuana, are blamed.

1960 - Yvette Mimeux's character in Where the Boys Are utters lines like, "Mystic!" and "I must have been really smashed—stoned!" When the boys teach her to smoke, she assures her friends, "I don't inhale, though."

1962 - Paul Newman tries to blackmail Geraldine Page over her hashish habit in Sweet Bird of Youth.

1968 - Leigh French debuts her "Share a Little Tea with Goldie" sketch on the Smothers Brothers TV show, and Leigh Taylor-Young bakes Peter Sellers brownies in I Love You Alice B. Toklas. Actresses Jo Van Fleet and Joyce Van Patten inadvertently get baked too.

1969 - Brenda Vaccaro puffs and passes in Midnight Cowboy, and Natalie Wood & Dyan Cannon get in on the pot-smoking fun in Bob & Carol & Ted  & Alice. On TV's "Bewitched" Endora turns up her nose at brownies that aren't made from an Alice B. Toklas recipe. 

1970 - Ruth Gordon plays an 80-year-old woman who opens up her young, troubled friend with the aid of a hookah in Harold and Maude. Barbra Streisand tells George Segal, "Now I'm going to make you happy" as she lights a joint to share with him in The Owl and the Pussycat. And Shirley MacLaine gets a beatific smile on her face after she smokes while playing a nun in Two Mules for Sister Sara.

1971 - Bunny O'Hare stars Bette Davis as a widow who motorcycles to Mexico with Ernest Borgnine, while the two pose as hippies to pull off a string of bank robberies. Borgnine puffs in the movie and Davis's character refuses when offered, but asks some intelligent questions about it. On TV's Mary Tyler Moore Show, Mary and Rhoda (Valerie Harper) suspect they're being used to smuggle marijuana into Mexico for their vacation.

1972 - Paula Prentiss puffs pot as a wacky would-be singer in The Last of the Red Hot Lovers and Cindy Williams turns on a staid bank manager in Travels With My Aunt.

1977 - Annie Hall, starring Diane Keaton as a pot-smoking heroine, sweeps the Oscars and Laraine Newman stumps for the American Dope Growers Union on TV's Saturday Night Live.

1978 - Karen Allen puffs with her college professor in Animal House and Jamie Lee Curtis shares a joint with Nancy Kyes in Halloween.

1979 - Beverly D'Angelo smokes a joint with two fellow debutantes (Jane Brooke and Suzanna Love) in Hair. 

1980 - Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda and Dolly Parton have an "old fashioned ladies pot party" in 9-5 and Helen Hunt plays a schoolgirl who smokes pot and is unable to write a book review (ironically, of Moby Dick) on the TV sitcom "The Facts of Life."

1981 - In a "lost episode" titled "I Do, I Do" of TV's Laverne and Shirley, the girls (played by Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams) get stoned on pot brownies.

1982 - Keaton sings a Beatles song as she smokes in the bathtub in Shoot the Moon. JoBeth Williams and Craig T. Nelson smoke and yuk it up in Poltergeist (then they pay). And Debra Winger shares a surreptitious joint in the car with a friend (Lisa Blount) in An Officer and a Gentleman

1983 - Winger as Emma and pal Patsy (Lisa Hart Carroll) toke up the night before Emma's wedding in Terms of Endearment. JoBeth is back toking along with Mary Kay Place and Gwen Close in The Big Chill, and Meryl Streep as Karen Silkwood passes a joint to Cher in Silkwood.

1984 - Kathleen Turner tells Michael Douglas she "went to college" in Romancing the Stone.


1985 - Molly Ringwald bonds with The Breakfast Club gang with the aid of a joint and Madonna turns on a New Jersey spa salesman in Desperately Seeking Susan.

1986 - Turner goes back in time to high school in Peggy Sue Got Married and smokes reefer with the town beatnik.

1987 - Susan Sarandon, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Cher smoke pot with the devilish Jack Nicholson in The Witches of Eastwick.

1988 - Sarandon plays the philosophical pot smoker Annie Savoy in Bull Durham and Karen Allen returns, this time puffing in a bathtub in Scrooged and helping Bill Murray find his soul. 

1990 - Mia Farrow smokes an opium pipe and finds her true path with the help of some magical herbs in Alice. 

1993 - Milla Jovovich plays with a lighter in the dopey Dazed and Confused and on TV's Roseanne, she and her husband enjoy "A Stash from the Past." Olympia Dukakis, playing landlady Anna Madrigal, turns her tenant (Laura Linney) onto pot in the PBS series "Tales of the City," which became a target for Jessie Helms and the far right due to its depiction of homosexuality and drug use.

1995 - Anne Bancroft, Ellen Burstyn and Winona Ryder share a joint on the front porch in How to Make an American Quilt, Parker Posey puffs and learns to be a librarian in Party Girl, and Alicia Silverstone gets "baked" at a party in Clueless. TV's "Friends" starts a series of running gags involving Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) and marijuana.

1996 - Liv Tyler and Rachel Weisz toke in Stealing Beauty. On TV, Jane Curtin's character on "Third Rock from the Sun" is revealed to be a former Berkeley radical who tries to smoke a frozen french fry, thinking it is a joint. On "Frazier," Roz (Peri Gilpin) says, "If I can grow plants in my dorm room closet I must know a thing or two about horticulture." (In the 2003 episode "High Holidays" she supplies a pot brownie to Martin.)

1997 - Candice Bergen as TV's controversial Murphy Brown uses medical marijuana. Catherine Hicks plays a mother who admits to her minister husband that she smoked pot in her past after he catches their son with a joint in the series 7th Heaven. Bridget Fonda tokes (but isn't exactly a role model) in Jackie Brown. 

1998 - Cameron Diaz and Ben Stiller smoke a joint together after they reunite in There's Something About Mary, and in Stepmom, Susan Sarandon's character uses medical marijuana to treat cancer.

1999 - Catherine Keener rolls a joint for her admirers Cameron Diaz and John Cusak in Being John Malkovich. Claire Danes puffs in a Thai prison in Brokedown Palace, Sandra Bullock smokes sinsemilla in Forces of Nature, Nicole Kidman tries pot (and everything else) in Eyes Wide Shut, and Mena Suvari & Thora Burch share a joint in American Beauty.  Hillary Swank, Chloe Sevingy, Alicia Goranson, and Alison Folland smoke pipes & bongs in Boys Don't Cry.

On TV, Linda Cardellini gets self aware (for a second) in Freaks and Geeks, and Donna (Laura Prepon) moves into "The Circle" in the basement in That 70s Show. Jackie (Mila Kunis) soon joins in too. In the Series 2 premiere ("Garage Sale"), Mrs. Forman (Debra Jo Rupp) and Donna's mom (Tanya Roberts) have some fun with brownies as the adults make a circle of their own. On The Sopranos, Meadow (Jamie-Lynn Sigler) smokes in a bathtub and with her boyfriend (Will Janowitz, who says Sigler and he smoked for real before the scene, and that she brought the joint and handled being stoned better than he did). 

2000 - Brenda Blethyn grows weed to save the farm in Saving Grace, Bette Midler inhales onscreen as Mel Gibson’s psychotherapist in What Women Want, and Laura Linney shares a brotherly joint with  Mark Ruffalo in You Can Count On Me. Jennifer Lopez gets trippy in The Cell, and there's a Honey Bear bong in Swimming. Kate Hudson plays a pot-smoking groupie in Almost Famous, wherein Frances McDormand warns her underage son against using drugs.

2002 - Susan Sarandon loosens up with Goldie Hawn in The Banger Sisters and McDormand and Kate Beckinsale smoke in the dreary Laurel Canyon.

2003 - Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) gets caught puffing pot on a NYC street in HBO's “Sex and the City”

2004 - Sandra Oh passes a joint to Virginia Madsen in Sideways, and Jessica Walter uses pot brownies to cope with stress in TV's "Arrested Development."

2005 - Showtime’s “Weeds,” with Mary-Louise Parker as a pot-peddling widow in suburbia, premieres. Anne Hathaway takes a walk on the wild weed side in Havoc,  and Sarah Silverman takes a bong hit after the show in Jesus is Magic. On TV's "Reno 911," police sergeant and former showgirl Clementine Johnson (Wendi McLendon-Covey) is revealed to be a pothead who steals weed from the evidence room.

2006 - Salma Hayek plays a pot-smoking waitress who seduces Colin Farrel in Ask The Dust, and Blanca Portillo uses medical marijuana in Volver (Penelope Cruz refuses). Jennifer Aniston smokes in bed in Friends with Money, and Cardellini is the life of the party in Grandma's Boy, where Shirley Jones, Shirley Knight, and Doris Roberts drink some interesting tea. On TV, Angelica Houston puffs and passes a joint to her fellow psychotherapist Hank Azaria in "Huff" and on Entourage, Sloan (Emmanuelle Chriqui) and her friend Tori (Malin Akerman) smoke and giggle together, then suggest a possible threesome with Sloan's boyfriend Eric, a typical male fantasy. 

2007 - Polly Bergen plays a mom who bakes marijuana brownies for her cancer-stricken daughter on "Desperate Housewives" and on daytime drama "General Hospital," attorney Alexis Davis (Nancy Lee Grahn) tries "Cannabis excellantus" procured by her daughter for relief from chemotherapy. On the big screen, Anna Faris stumbles superstoned through the worst script ever in Smiley Face and Lynn Redgrave plays an irresponsible hippie pot-smoking mother in The Jane Austen Book Club.

2008 - Danneel Harris helps Kumar with his stress levels in Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay and Ellen Page plays a Young Republican overachieving high school student who gets more human with a joint in Smart People. Meg Ryan puffs pot proffered by Midler in the Marjorie Main role in The Women remake, and subsequently finds her way to her bliss. Charlotte Rae—who played the housemother TV’s "The Facts of Life"—accidentally doses the "ER" cast at their Christmas party with her medicinal brownies, and In Four Christmases Sissy Spacek warns her grandson against grandma's "special" brownies.

2009 - Meryl Streep and Steve Martin “poke smot” in the movie It’s Complicated, Kristen Stewart has an adventure in Adventureland, and Catherine Zeta-Jones is the hottest MILF ever shotgunning her young date in The Rebound. On TV, secretary-turned-copywriter Peggy Olson (Elizabeth Moss) learns to partake on TV’s "Mad Men"

2010 - Drew Barrymore takes a monster bong hit and blows smoke rings in Going the Distance, winning her the High Times "Stonette of the Year" award. Comedienne Jenny Slate's character on HBO's "Bored to Death" is described this way: "She's sexy, she's Jewish, and she has a great vaporizer." In the final season, Mary Steenburgen seduces real-life hubby Ted Danson with weed.

2011 - Jane Fonda shines as a hippie pot-smoking grandmother in Peace, Love and Misunderstanding, Cameron Diaz is the Bad Teacher and Anna Paquin loosens up with Ryan Phillipe in Straight A's. In No Strings Attached, bride-to-be Olivia Thirlby gets stoned when her bridesmaids bring her pot.  On TV, "Harry's Law," starring Kathy Bates as a pot-puffing attorney, debuts.

2012 - Emily Blunt smokes from a Wesson bottle bong and turns on Colin Firth in Arthur Newman. Halle Berry tokes with Tom Hanks in Cloud Atlas and Kristina Braverman uses it medicinally in TV's Parenthood. A widow supplements her income by baking "space cakes" in the French film Paulette. Joan Rivers tokes on her reality show. 

2013 - Amanda Seyfried smokes a joint in Lovelace and Aniston's character tokes and transforms in Life of Crime. On TV, Carol Burnett tries to score medical marijuana at a Hawaiian dispensary in an episode of "Hawaii 5-0" and Martha Stewart tells Andy Cohen that "of course" she knows how to roll a joint on Bravo's "Watch What Happens Live." Bette Midler triumphs on Broadway in the role of pot-loving super agent Sue Mengers in "I’ll Eat You Last."


2014 - Helen Hunt takes us for a Ride, and Scarlett Johansson smokes an after-work joint with Jon Favreau in Chef. Elizabeth Moss plays a pothead in love in the trippy The One I Love, Reese Witherspoon tokes in Inherent Vice, Anna Kendrick does in Happy Christmas, and Vera Farmiga takes a big bong hit and gets giggly with Andy Garcia in At Middleton. Charlize Theron turns Seth MacFarlane onto pot brownies (after finding out he doesn't smoke) in A Million Ways to Die in the West.

On TV, Comedy Central's "Broad City" debuts; "Mozart in the Jungle," based on the book by Blair Tindall, has musicians blowing more than their instruments; "Keeping up with the Kardashians" shows Kris and her mother M.J. eating marijuana gummies and giggling; Garfunkel and Oates sing their song "Weed Card" on an episode where they visit a medical marijuana dispensary; and Kim Cattrall takes an elegant toke in the Canadian series "Sensitive Skin."

2015 - Streep opens up communication with her estranged family with the aid of some pot she finds in the freezer in Ricki and the Flash, and Seyfried plays a bong-smoking lawyer in Ted 2. Blythe Danner, Rhea Perlman, Mary Kay Place and June Squibb have a pot party followed by a munchie run in I’ll See You in My Dreams, and Cloris Leachman has a blast smoking pot for pain with her granddaughter (Mickey Sumner) in This Is Happening. Kate Winslet and Judy Davis bake "special" cakes for a neighbor in pain in The Dressmaker, and Lily Tomlin grabs an Emmy nomination for playing a pot-puffing hippie on the Netflix series "Grace and Frankie" but was more interesting and powerful in Grandma, where she tokes with an old boyfriend (Sam Elliott). 

2016 - Pauline Collins makes some Dough, the Bad Moms are, and Melissa McCarthy decides to start a "brownie empire" in The Boss. Tina Fey and Margot Robbie puff on a hookah in Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, and Blake Lively pronounces in CafĂ© Society: "Muggles made me feel sexy." In Fleabag on Amazon, Phoebe Waller-Bridge flashes back to toking up with her lost girlfriend Boo. Mary + Jane, a Snoop Dogg-backed show about two women who operate a marijuana delivery service, debuts on MTV. In "The Ranch" on Netflix, Debra Winger sings along to Ashley Monroe's "Bring Me Weed Instead of Roses." 

2017 - Kathy Bates plays a medical marijuana dispensary owner on Netflix's "Disjointed," and Kathryn Hahn wakes & bakes in "I Love Dick." Collins was back smoking a joint "for her arthritis" with Franco Nero in The Time of Our Lives, and British actresses Celia Imrie and Imelda Staunton also use it "medicinally" in Finding Your Feet.  Hayek smokes a joint and has visions in Beatriz at Dinner, the Bad Moms were back with a Christmas movie, and Florence Henderson (Mrs. Brady) and Pam Grier (Jackie Brown) smoke together in Bad Grandmas. Tiffany Haddish smuggles pot as only a woman can in Girls Trip, and in the final scene, the girls (Haddish, Regina Hall, Queen Latifah, and Jada Pinkett Smith) break out the ganja. In Fun Mom Dinner, Paul Rudd sells Toni Collette the Ruth Bader Ganja, and “gets supremely high” with Molly Shannon, Katie Aselton, and Bridget Everett.

2018 - Lady Bird wins Greta Gerwig a scriptwriting Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination for best director. In it, Saoirse Ronan and Beanie Feldstein smoke, have fun, get the munchees, and giggle. Rihanna smokes in more ways than one in Oceans 8, in which she plays a Rasta computer hacker.  And Julianne Moore plays another divorced woman who smokes pot as part of her new life in Gloria Bell: the twist here is she's lead to it with the help of her ex-husband's new wife, played by Jeanne Tripplehorn, who pulls out a vape pen after a family dinner. On TV, Rachel Brosnahan as The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel smokes with fellow comedian Lenny Bruce (every stoner girl's dream date), and on HBO Sarah Snook as Shiv shares a joint with her brothers like "old times" in the only sweet scene in Succession.

2019 - Kristen Stewart puffs pot in Seberg (pictured), and four Netflix shows have women smoking pot: Rita Moreno enjoys some cannabis edibles (accidentally) on One Day at a Time;  Linda Cardellini "reacquaints" Christina Applegate with weed on Dead to Me; Olympia Dukakis, Laura Linney and Ellen Page smoke in Armistad Maupin's Tales of the City; and Andie MacDowell turns Chevy Chase onto marijuana and more in The Last Laugh and runs a pot farm on Cuckoo, in which gal pals Esther Smith and Lily Frazer share a joint and get closer. On the big screen, Billie Lourd asks her fellow high school girls, "Not even pot? Because I think it would relax you" in Booksmart, directed by Olivia Wilde, and Elle Fanning has "too many drinks, too much weed" in A Rainy Day in New York

2020 - Golden Globe-nominated actress Katherine Langford lights a joint from comedienne Edi Patterson's stash box in Knives Out. Kerry Washington plays a weed-smoking artist in Little Fires Everywhere and Gwyneth Paltrow power puffs in The Politician. PBS's Beecham House depicts hookah smoking, and Natalie Morales makes the right choice on Dead to Me when asked, "Coffee, pudding or weed?"  Anya Taylor-Joy puffs and takes pills in The Queen's Gambit as a child prodigy/druggy chess player.
 
2021 - The United States vs. Billie Holiday depicts how the singer was targeted by the US Government for her drug use due to her politics. Jennifer Lawrence plays a pot-smoking researcher who discovers a comet heading towards Earth in the Oscar-nominated film Don't Look Up.  Leslie Jones gets Eddie Murphy stoned on "ceremonial herbs" in Coming2America, and Loretta Devine says to Ellen Burstyn in QueenBees (pictured): "You've got to live every day. Do you want to get baked?" 

Isabelle Huppert plays a police translator turned hash dealer in Mama Weed, Krisha Fairchild is a Humboldt pot grower / stoner who gets screwed by the legalization laws in Freeland, and Melanie Lynskey plays a pot smoker who gets her act together to right a historic wrong in Lady of the ManorThe Marijuana Conspiracy dramatizes a Canadian research study that locked up a group of young women with weed. 

On TV, Regina King plays a policewoman / hostage negotiator who just overdosed on weed gummies on SNLJean Smart and Hannah Einbinder take weed gummies together in Hacks, and on The White Lotus, two college girls (Sydney Sweeney & Brittany O'Grady) share a shotgun from a bong after they discover that between them they've packed weed, ketamine, and several prescription medications for their trip to Hawaii. 

2022 - Jennifer Lawrence "gets good" in Causeway on Apple +. On The Kardashians, Kris and Khloe enjoy weed gummies and munch out on Mexican food.  Jenifer Lewis as a home-shopping-network TV mogul smokes pot in a bubble bath in "I Love That For You" on Showtime. Season 3 of Dead to Me has Linda Cardellini smoking a smuggled joint within the first five minutes, and in "Irma Vep," a Parisian woman named Ondine declares herself "Queen of the Joints" and Kristin Stewart rolls one. 

Hadley Robinson and Molly Gordon share a bonding joint as co-workers in "Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty" on Max, in which VIP Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is also depicted smoking a j. The gang enjoys "Fredibles," leading to giggles and breakthroughs, in the Season 1 finale of "Somebody Somewhere" with Bridget Everett. 

2023 - Elvis Presley's granddaughter Riley Keough puffs during a powerhouse performance in "Daisy Jones & the Six" on Amazon Prime. "That 90s Show," a Netflix reboot of "That 70s Show," puts a new generation of high school stoners in the basement, including Leah (Callie Haverda) and Gwen (Ashley Aufderheide). British actress T-Nia Miller takes an elegant toke at a picnic with Rufus Sewell in "The Diplomat," also on Netflix. 

Alex Borstein shows up for her character Susie Myerson's roastamonial "smelling like Cheech and Chong" in the final season of "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" on Amazon Prime. On Max's Perry Mason, a "hop head" wife (Hope Davis) asks, "Have you had any experience with marijuana? I find it has a marvelous calming effect." The ever-helpful Della Street (Juliet Rylance) lights the pipe. On "The Horror of Dolores Roach" also from Amazon Prime, Justina Machado plays a former weed dealer who goes all Sweeney Todd after getting out of prison. 

Awkwafina helps out when her grandma gets into the weed business on "Nora from Queens" on Comedy Central. "Survival of the Thickest" on Netflix features a pre-jog vape sesh with Mavis (Michelle Buteau) and Marley (Tasha Smith). On Max's, "And Just Like That," good girl Charlotte (Kristin Davis, pictured) sensuously swallows a pot brownie and finds her way back to her center. Meryl Streep is back, smoking pot with Martin Short on "Only Murders in the Building" on Hulu. 

2024 - Abbott Elementary's episode "Smoking" has teacher Janine (Quinta Brunson) admitting she's a nightly weed smoker, saying, "It's medicinal, and it's considerate. If I didn't smoke, I'd be an insufferable Energizer Bunny." Among her fellow teachers, Ava (Janelle James) microdoses, and Melissa (Lisa Ann Walter) uses a "gateway ointment" CBD topical that straight-laced wino Barbara (Sheryl Lee Ralph) tries in the end. The show spoofs on the D.A.R.E. program (calling it F.A.D.E.).

Tuesday, May 28, 2019

Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice Turn 50

Alice (Dyan Cannon) & Ted (Elliott Gould) & Bob
(Robert Culp) & Carol (Natalie Wood) have a pot party. 
This year marks the 50th anniversary of Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, the first modern movie that depicted women smoking pot.

The film was written and directed by Paul Mazursky (who also wrote 1968's I Love You Alice B. Toklas, in which pot brownies are imbibed). It begins with married couple Bob (Robert Stack) and Carol (Natalie Wood) participating in an encounter group, based on Mazursky's experiences at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, CA.

Having opened up to new experiences, Bob has a fling with a colleague on a business trip, and confesses his infidelity to Carol. She is surprisingly accepting of Bob's experimentation, and soon tries some of her own.

Child star/actress Natalie Wood (Miracle on 34th Street,
Rebel Without a Cause, West Side Story
) puffs pot.
The couple's experiments include smoking pot with their friends, another married couple Ted (Elliot Gould) and Alice (Dyan Cannon). Wood as Carol daintily takes a few little hits, after filling the pipe and lighting it for her husband.

She then pronounces herself "totally and completely zonked out of my skull" but doesn't really act like it, except for amusing herself by talking about doing things "groovily and peacefully."

Cannon, despite her character's name being Alice (as in Wonderland or B. Toklas), insists that she "never gets high," while puffing and coughing away. Her revelation is that she's too fearful of "getting into a potful of trouble," especially because Bob & Ted are lawyers. Ted tells her he loves her anyway, calling her "my sweet unstoned mother of my only son."

Saturday, May 8, 2021

Tokin' Woman Blog Turns 10, Makes 420th Post

It's been 10 years since I spun off my VeryImportantPotheads Blog into this Tokin' Woman blog. I've had nearly half a million views on its pages, thanks to you, my readers!

The blog has covered politics, movies & tv, music, sports, and herstory (ancient and modern). I've done interviews and reviews, and compilations of books, movies, and songs. I've covered beauty queens, cannabis events and exhibits, and recorded my own travels. I've celebrated International Women's Day, Women's History Month, Black History Month, and 4/20. I've given out "Tokey" awards, and published tributes to fallen Tokin' Women.

The Top 10 Most Viewed Posts on the Tokin' Woman blog are: 

#1. My, Oh Maya
I spotted Maya Angelou as one of only five women on a list of influential marijuana users put out by the Marijuana Policy Project in 2012. Never content to repeat news without digging as far to the bottom of it as I can, I looked up MPP's reference, a Harold Bloom biography, and took it out of the library. Bloom referenced Angelou's book Gather Together in My Name, and reading it lead to my most-read 2014 post on her, where she describes beautifully her marijuana experience in the context of her extraordinary life. 

#2. Please Let Princess Kate Smoke Pot
This post, which laments the lack of research into the use of cannabis for pregnant mothers with hyperemis gravidarum (HG), got a big boost when the British reform group CLEAR reposted it. 

I've covered cannabis and pregnancy elsewhere, e.g.: 
Nevada To Launch Campaign Against Pre-Natal Marijuana Use  
Cannabis and Pregnancy During Legalization
NIDA on Pregnancy: The Whole Truth? 
NIDA Kills Marijuana and Pregnancy Study 
SSRIs increasingly prescribed during pregnancy, without much study on their effects

#3. "Did Richard Nixon Finger Lucille Armstrong for a Pot Bust?"
One of my favorite posts and biggest coups came from a lucky tip I got from an elderly trumpet player in Los Angeles. He'd toured with Louis Armstrong and said Louis told him a story about Richard Nixon carrying a valise full of marijuana through an airport for him in Japan, just before Louis's wife Lucille was busted for carrying what was likely her husband's pot. Ricky Riccardi, Director of Research Collections for the Louis Armstrong House Museum in NY, began referring people who asked him about the incident to my post. 

#4. The Day John Denver Died 
Few knew that John Denver admitted to smoking marijuana in the 1970s. He's the kind of pothead I most like to report on: someone accomplished and admired whose image isn't like a caricature of a typical pot user. Having spotted his admission in a stack of old High Times magazines a friend gave me, I first covered him on my VeryImportantPotheads website. I took the occasion of the airing of a documentary about him to blog about it, noting that—as so often happens—a celebrity's marijuana use goes unmentioned, or barely so, in such films. 

I've covered other Men We'd Love to Toke With: Paul Simon, Jim Croce, Oscar Levant, James Garner, Tom Hayden, Robin Williams, and Adam Levine. Killer Mike, an Atlanta NORML supporter born on 4/20, tweeted out my post about him

#5. Was the Woman Who Smoked Pot with JFK Murdered by the CIA? 
This was my post for the 50th anniversary of JFK's assassination, an event seared into my brain since, as a first grader, I got sent home from school and shockingly saw my teachers (the usually stoic nuns) in tears. The strange and tragic death of JFK's lover Mary Meyer is connected in this post with the deaths of two other women: Dorothy Kilgallen and Marilyn Monroe. 

Three of of my other herstorical posts made it into the Top 10: 

#6: Seshat – Goddess of
Knowledge and Cannabis

#7: Nikola Tesla, His Mother,
and Hemp

#8: Asherah: The Tree of Life

I also covered recent findings about a recently discovered Viking ship buried for 11 centuries with the remains to two women/shamanesses, along with a small leather pouch containing cannabis seeds. Also, a recent discovery of cannabis resin on an ancient Israeli altar that I connected to the goddess Asherah. 

Other recent herstorical (and a couple of historical) discoveries: 

My 420th post is about the new book The Immortality Key that further connects goddesses and priestesses to ancient religions and their psychedelic sacraments. 


#9. 2016 Tokey Awards
My Tokey Award posts, where I pick a Tokin' Woman of the Year and give awards in other categories, are always popular. This 2016 post featuring Whoopi Goldberg made it into the Top Ten; another popular one was my 2015 Tokey Award post with Melissa Etheridge as Tokin' Woman of the Year. I met Melissa at a Women Grow event in Denver, and she told me she'd tweeted out the news on New Year's Eve that year. 

and Ruthless
Rounding out the top 10 is this post, combining my loves of art and activism, which got a boost from activist circles. Invited to see the premiere of the Netflix TV series "Disjointed" where Kathy Bates plays a cannabis dispensary owner, I asked a couple of women I knew who were real-life dispensary owners. One of them, Chelsea Sutula of the Sespe Creek Collective, couldn't attend after she was arrested for doing just what Bates was doing on TV. 

I've written about other drug war victims, such as Candy Barr, Anita O'Day, Teresa McGovern, Lila Leeds, and Billie Holiday. I also love literature, writing about George EliotIsak Dinesen and Joyce Carol Oates, plus poets Anne WaldmanIris TreeDiane di Prima and Joanne Kryger. Among musicians, I've covered Janis Joplin, Grace SlickJoan Jett, Heart, Chrissie Hynde, Sarah Vaughn, and Kacey Musgraves, and published compilations of women's contributions to Jazz and Rock & Reggae (partly to counter lists that seldom include women at all). 

One of my favorite moments over the past decade was meeting Chelsea Handler in 2019 and handing her my book (and getting a picture). I also met Leigh French, whose breakthrough "Share a Little Tea with Goldie" bit marked the first female pot smoker depicted on TV, when I gave her a "Tip of the Teacup" award in 2015. I was honored to meet a Jamaican DJ who corroborated my theory that cannabis was among the spices that the Queen of Sheba brought to King Solomon, and I traveled to Barcelona to see the "We Are Mary Jane" exhibit in which, much to my surprise, I was included.   

Meanwhile, I've covered the rising acceptance of cannabis among women in posts like Women Increasingly Find Marijuana Smoking "Morally Acceptable" and the latest good news: Women Surpass Men Supporting Marijuana Legalization in New Poll.  I can't claim credit for the upsurge in women's support, but the lack of it was one reason I started writing.

Thank you for reading the Tokin' Woman blog! Also see and follow Tokin' Woman's Facebook page, Twitter and Instagram

Tell me your favorite Tokin' Woman post in the comments below for a chance to win a copy of "Tokin' Women: A 4000-Year Herstory of Women and Marijuana." 

Saturday, April 11, 2020

Top 20 for 4/20 Women and Weed Movies (Part 2)

I don't like many of the "Stoner Movies" that people like to list: I much prefer a good movie that has a pivotal scene involving pot's power to transform, and connect us to each other and our deeper selves. 

Here are the Top 10 movies that, to me, fit that bill (and include women).  Also see Top Women in Weed Movies #11-20 and the many Honorable Mentions below.

(Hint: just Google the name of the movie to find out what streaming services have it, and at what price.)



#10. The Breakfast Club (1985)
As we're all in detention right now, let's kick off this list with Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy getting over their hangups and bonding with their fellow detainees with the aid of marijuana (and music) in this classic teen movie. This was quite a breakthrough in the "Just Say No" 1980s, so enjoy the "Detention Dance" video (and go make one of your own).
Free with Hulu subscription. Rentable at from Amazon Prime, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, and Vudu. 



#9. Grandma (2015)
Unlike Tomlin's character in Netflix's "Grace and Frankie," where she's ridiculed by the alcoholic Jane Fonda character, in Grandma, Lily as the feminist poetess Elle is back in all her power, signified by the "Violet" tattoo she wears on her arm (the name of the character she played in 9-5). She takes down her granddaughter's asshole boyfriend and afterwards steals his stash, smoking it with old boyfriend and silver fox Sam Elliot. The film even has a bit of a poem by Tokin' Woman Anne Waldman, plus a final appearance by Elizabeth Peña (La Bamba), who died of cirrhosis of the liver at the age of 55 in 2014. (One more reason to be more like Frankie than Grace.)
Free with Hulu subscription, rentable on Amazon Prime, YouTube, Google Play.




#8. Ricki And The Flash (2015)
Meryl Streep rocks as a rock singer mother who opens up communication with her estranged family assisted by a bag of pot she finds in the freezer. Directed by Jonathan Demme and written by Diablo Cody, the film re-unites Streep with Kevin Kline (Sophie's Choice) and also co-stars Rick Springfield and her real-life daughter Mamie Gummer. Streep and Steve Martin “poke smot” in the 2009 movie It’s Complicated, giving the movie an "R" rating due to a lack of "negative consequences." Reportedly Streep also smoked medicinal pot in One True Thing, a film in which she plays a cancer patient who takes her own life with an overdose of morphine (I guess that consequence was bad enough for the censors).
Rentable from Amazon Prime, Google Play, iTunes, Vudu, and YouTube.


 
#7. Bull Durham (1988)
Oscar winner Susan Sarandon plays the philosophical pot smoker Annie Savoy who, after trying other religions, worships at "The Church of Baseball." She romances both ballplayers Kevin Costner and Tim Robbins, who she hooked up with after shooting. Pot is subtly depicted, as when she's left alone and puffs thoughtfully in her bed, and when she finds a roach on the floor after a date with Costner, musing, "This world is made for those who aren't cursed with self-awareness."
Free on Vudu and Tubi; rentable at YouTube, Amazon Prime, Google Play, and iTunes.



#6. Peace Love & Misunderstanding (2011)
Jane Fonda plays a better Grace in this film than she does on the "Grace & Frankie." Here she portrays the hippie mother of an uptight attorney (Catherine Keener) who brings her two teenage children to their grandmother's house after her marriage breaks up. Grace, whose home reeks of pot, deals a little on the side and introduces her grandkids (Elizabeth Olsen and Nat Wolff) to the wonders of the weed. It's done intelligently, with Grace resorting to it before losing them to an evening of them closing down (as so many teens do). With Chace Crawford, who played the stoner on "Gossip Girl," and Rosanna Arquette, howling at the moon while wearing a pot-leaf necklace.
Available for rent at iTunes and for purchase on other platforms. 


#5 - Saving Grace
Academy Award-nominated actress Brenda Blethyn plays another Grace, a widow who grows weed to save her Cornwall home in this charming British comedy from comedian Craig Ferguson (who co-stars). It gets a little preachy in parts, as when Grace tries to smoke and gets ill, but it's hilarious when two old ladies from the town try making tea from her crop, and the ending is delightful. (I asked Ferguson at an pre-screening event if he'd been pressured to add "negative consequences" to the film. He said, "Oh yes, some wanted my character to die.")
Included with Hulu subscriptions; Available for purchase at iTunes, Google Play & Vudu.




#4 - Ride (2015)
Written and directed by actress Helen Hunt (Mad About You, What Women Want), Ride stars Hunt as a high-powered New York editor who follows her wayward son to California and ends up on a quest of her own, learning to surf and smoke pot (and fall in love with Luke Wilson). It's particularly gratifying to see Hunt depicting marijuana (mostly) positively, since in 1980 she played a schoolgirl who smokes pot and is unable to complete a book report in the sitcom "The Facts of Life," during the time when the US drug czar's office was offering advertising credits to shows with anti-marijuana messages.
Included with Amazon Prime, Vudu and Tubi subscriptions; Available for purchase at Amazon, iTunes, Google Play, and You Tube.




#3 - Annie Hall (1977)
Sweeping the Oscars in 1977 was this film starring Diane Keaton as a sweet but insecure pot smoker who tries to turn Woody Allen onto weed so that he can start to enjoy life (the original title of the film was Anhedonia, the inability to be happy). Having an argument about why she must smoke before they make love, she tells him if he'd only try it he wouldn't need so much psychotherapy. Keaton also smokes pot on film (in a bathtub) in 1982's Shoot the Moon. Also a nod to Allen's movie Alice in which Mia Farrow smokes opium and takes some trips of her own, Alice in Wonderland style.)
Included with Amazon Prime and Hulu subscriptions; Available for purchase at Amazon, iTunes, Google Play & Vudu.
 


#2 - Harold and Maude (1970)
The amazing screenwriter/actress Ruth Gordon plays Maude, an 80-year-old free-spirited woman who turns a young Harold (Bud Cort) onto marijuana, enabling him to open up to someone about the source of his strange behavior, and learn to love life. With a Cat Stevens soundtrack and Hal Ashby directing, it's probably no accident that this film is Cameron Diaz's favorite movie as the title character in There's Something About Mary (1998), since Mary and Ted (Ben Stiller) smoke a joint together after they reunite.
Included with Amazon Prime subscriptions. Available for purchase at Amazon, iTunes, Google Play & Vudu.  





#1 - 9 to 5 (1980)
Jane Fonda plays a naive woman who returns to work after her husband runs off with his secretary. Soon she and co-workers Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton have "an old fashioned ladies' pot party" and scheme to overthrow their sexist boss. In one scene Fonda announces to her ex-husband that she smokes marijuana as part of her awakening. It also contains an intelligently written scene where Tomlin and her son discuss drug use and moderation. Parton contributed the movie's theme song, and it and the film have become statements for women's empowerment.
On Hulu and Sling TV (subscription); Available for purchase at Amazon, iTunes, Google Play & Vudu.


Also see: Top Women in Weed Movies #11-20 and:

Honorable mentions (click on the title links to read more):

- Madonna turns a spa salesman onto pot in Desperately Seeking Susan (1985). Philosophical musings ensure.

- Tina Fey and Margot Robbie puff a hookah in the excellent Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (2016).

- Andie MacDowell turns Chevy Chase onto pot and more in the Netflix film The Last Laugh (2019), also featuring Richard Dreyfus and Kate Micucci from "Garfunkel and Oates."

- Catherine Zeta-Jones is the hottest MILF ever shotgunning her young date in The Rebound (2009).

- Danneel Harris turns Kai Penn (Kumar) onto pot in Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay; in A Very Harold and Kumar 3-D Christmas she convinces him not to stop smoking.

- Cameron Diaz lights up more than the screen in Bad Teacher where she opens up co-worker Phyllis Smith ("The Office") with a doobie. 

- Kate Winslet and Judy Davis bake "special" cakes for a neighbor in pain in The Dressmaker (2015).

- Liv Tyler turns on an ailing Jeremy Irons in Stealing Beauty (1996), wherein Rachel Weisz also tokes.

- Eva Amurri Martino, Sarandon's daughter, drives a pot dealer around one summer to make money for college in Middle of Nowhere (2008). The scene where he justifies his career choice is one of the most cogent arguments for legalization ever.

 - JoBeth Williams, Mary Kay Place and Gwen Close toke in The Big Chill (1983). JoBeth also tokes up in Poltergeist (1982), but then she pays.

- Karen Allen puffs with her college professor/lover Donald Sutherland, bringing the boys along, in Animal House (1978). She also smokes in a bathtub in Scrooged (1988)

- Linda Cardellini is the life of the party in Grandma's Boy (2006), where Shirley Jones and Doris Roberts drink some interesting tea.

- I’ll See You in My Dreams (2015) features a pot party followed by a munchie run with Blythe Danner, Rhea Perlman, Mary Kay Place and June Squibb.

- Elizabeth Moss brings a bag of pot on a retreat with her husband in The One I Love (2014)leading to some bizarre consequences.

- Charlize Theron turns Seth MacFarlane onto pot brownies in A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014), setting him up for his drug-fueled Native American vision quest that puts him on the right path.


See an almost-complete list by date of women and marijuana in Movies and on TV. 

Tuesday, September 28, 2021

Why Don't Women Smoke Pot With Each Other in Movies and on TV?

I just saw the terrific documentary This Changes Everything about the exclusion of women in the film industry, particularly as directors.  One segment was about "The Bechdel Test" for a film, something that came from a comic book in the 1980s.

To pass the Bechdel Test: 

• It must have at least two female characters 
• They must both have names 
• They must talk to each other about something other than a man. 

My version of the test for films with Tokin' Women would be:  

• It must have at least two female characters 
• They must smoke marijuana with each other 
• They must talk about something meaningful while stoned 

I just went through my fairly comprehensive list of Tokin' Women in Movies and TV and found that only in rare cases do women smoke pot together in film or on TV.  
 

Saturday, December 23, 2017

Top Ten Christmas Cultural References to Marijuana in Movies & TV


Yes, kiddies, Jesus was a Mushroom and so was Santa Claus. Until mankind can fully come to grips with our true drug-fueled history (and herstory), here are some interesting references that have snuck through at Christmastime:

1. In the heartfelt 2005 film The Family Stone, Diane Keaton munches "special" brownies as the cancer-stricken family matriarch, and Sarah Jessica Parker plays the uptight Meredith, whose freak flag flies under the tutelage of her fiancĂ©'s brother Ben Stone (Been Stoned?), played by Luke Wilson.

2. The Night Before (2015) written by Jonathan Levine (The Wackness) and starring Seth Rogen and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, features Dickensian pot dealer Mr. Green (Michael Shannon) manifesting marijuana's three vision quest abilities: to put you squarely in the present, to illuminate a future you fear, and to come to grips with a past you have buried. To the character who protests paranoia, Mr. Green replies, "Sometimes it's good to be uncomfortable." Packed with the usual party boy inanities, this one at least has cameos from Mindy Kaling and Ilana Glazer (Broad City) as Scrooge.

3. In Scrooged (1998), Bill Murray finds his soul with the help of his pot-puffing girlfriend, played by Karen Allen.

4. To deal with his sudden change in fortune, Eddie Murphy jumps into the john to take a toke, and Dan Aykroyd lights up a spliff in disguise as a Jamaican in Trading Places (1983), set at Christmastime.

5. In The Man Who Came to Dinner (1941), the unwanted visitor's host is based on H.H. Timken, the Ohio industrialist who planned to bankroll hemp production in the US. Absinthe is mentioned.

6. In the 1951 movie The Lemon Drop Kid, Bob Hope sniffs Santa's pipe and pantomimes flying while singing the song "Silver Bells":



7.  In Four Christmases (2008) where the always-hilarious Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon attempt to dodge their wacky relatives, Sissy Spacek warns her grandson against grandma's "special" brownies.

8. A Very Harold & Kumar 3-D Christmas (2011) must be mentioned. Best moment: when Danneel Harris (Vanessa) convinces Kumar not to stop smoking.

9. In Happy Christmas (2014) Anna Kendrick (pictured) plays an insecure woman who puffs pot from a joint and a pipe, and does fine unless she mixes it with alcohol. It's not very Christmassy, insightful, or fun, but Kendrick is good (as always).

10. A tie between the 2008 ER episode, "The High Holiday," which features Charlotte Rea (who played the housemother TV’s staid sitcom "The Facts of Life") accidentally dosing the staff at their Christmas party with her pot brownies, made for a friend in chemotherapy. And the 2009 Friends episode in which Monica is baking Christmas cookies, and Phoebe comments, "A plate of brownies once told me a limerick." "Were those funny brownies?" she is asked. "Not especially," is her response, "but you know what, I think they had pot in them."

And for you kids in town without a Christmas tree, the "smoke your marijuanaka" line in Adam Sandler's original Hanukkah Song always gets a big ovation whenever he performs it live. His newest version #4 of the song shows he's still smokin:

 

UPDATE 12/2019: In 2020 look for "High Holiday," the plot of which is (according to IMDB): "In order to lighten up her uptight family, the free-spirited daughter of a conservative politician brings weed-infused salad dressing to Christmas Eve dinner. With Tom Arnold, Jennifer Tilly, Cloris Leachman and Shannyn Sossamon.

UPDATE 12/2022: Just discovered: The Simpsons "The Fight Before Christmas" episode, where Bart dreams he boards the Polar Express en route to Santa's workshop at the North Pole. When Bart exclaims, "We're flying!" the engineer (Otto) says, "Yep, she can fly all right, you've just got to keep her happy," shoveling marijuana into the fire. Magical moments ensue. On the return trip, police follow the train and Otto gifts it to Bart for Christmas before jumping out. With appearances by Martha Stewart and Katy Perry, playing themselves. 

Friday, April 10, 2020

Top 20 Women and Weed Movies (Part 1)

It's somehow fitting that this April, when the whole month is 4/20, we should be forced into being couch potatoes while safely sheltering at home.

Here then, for your home viewing enjoyment, is the first installment in our Top 20 Women and Weed Movies, most of which are available on streaming services. Pass the munchees, and watch 'em stoned for maximum diversion.




#20. Lady Bird (2017)
The movie that won Greta Gerwig a scriptwriting Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination for best director depicts actresses Saoirse Ronan and Beanie Feldstein trying some "primo" and feeling the first effects, like getting the munchees and giggling joyously. Oh, and not feeling your arms. Seems the gals were subtly stoned on prom night too, leading to the line, "We ate all the cheese." Gerwig went on to direct Ronan in "Little Women," by and about Tokin' Woman Louisa May Alcott.
On Amazon Prime, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play. 




#19. The Family Stone (2005) 
Sarah Jessica Parker plays an uptight perfectionist who travels with her fiancé to meet his family at Christmas and loosens up with the help of the holy herb and her boyfriend's brother, played by Luke Wilson (ever the appealing stoner). Diane Keaton plays the cancer-stricken family matriarch who takes "special" medicinal brownies. SJP also toked on TV's "Sex in the City" and is one of the few actress who can actually play "stoned" (not drunk or stupid; more giggly and aware).
On Hulu (subscription); rentable on other services.




#18. How to Make an American Quilt (1995)
Anne Bancroft, Ellen Burstyn and Winona Ryder share an intergenerational joint on the front porch in this film, where Ryder's character comes home to write a dissertation on quilting while she ponders a marriage proposal. A rare appearance by Maya Angelou as the master quilter is a treat; Lady Jean Simmons also appears. From the book by Whitney Otto, based in a town called Grass, California.




#17. Being John Malkovich (1999)
Catherine Keener rolls a joint for her admirers Cameron Diaz and John Cusak in this audacious comedy that intriguingly explores the nature of consciousness, who controls it, and what it takes to break out of the confining mundaneness of life. I think my favorite moment is when it's revealed why a chimpanzee has post-traumatic stress. "You don't know how lucky you are being a monkey," Cusak tells him. "Because consciousness is a terrible curse."
On Hulu (subscription); rentable on other services. 


 

#16. Life of Crime (2014)
Jennifer Aniston stars as a society wife kidnapped by a couple of pot-smoking Detroit hoods in this Elmore Leonard film. Aided by a supporting cast starting with her heinous husband (Tim Robbins) and his scheming girlfriend (Isla Fisher, who played Mary Jane in the Scooby Doo movie and Myrtle in The Great Gatsby), Aniston has a little fun as a hostage laughing at the classic "Sanford and Son" scene involving marijuana. In the film, as so often in life, smoking a little weed leads to a woman looking at the world in a different, better way.
On Hulu (subscription); rentable on other services. 




#15. Finding Your Feet (2017)
This charming British film stars Imelda Stanton as solid senior citizen Saundra who moves in with her Bohemian sister Bif (Celia Imrie) after leaving her cheating husband. She soon joins a dance troupe and re-discovers life, love, and marijuana. "I'm not like you, Bif," Saundra protests. "I just can't open up like a lotus flower." With the aid of a little weed, she finds her footing and begins to flower herself.
On Hulu (subscription); rentable on other services. 




#14. The Time of Our Lives (2017)
Pauline Collins (Shirley Valentine) plays Priscilla, a pensioner housewife out on an adventure with Joan Collins, in a tour-de-force performance as a faded movie star. Priscilla ends up smoking a joint "for her arthritis" with Franco Nero; both actors were 76 years old when they played the scene. Collins (Pauline, not Joan) also appeared in 2016's Dough wherein a bakery business suddenly becomes popular when it starts adding weed to its recipes.




#13. The Women (2008)
In this remake of a Clare Booth Luce–penned movie, Meg Ryan plays a cheated-on wife who goes on a retreat where she puffs pot proffered by a shamanesque Bette Midler, and subsequently finds her way to her own bliss. You'll have to go to the deleted scenes on the DVD to hear Ryan saying, "I'm really stoned." The all-female, star-studded cast includes Candice Bergen (who was the first medical marijuana patient on TV in "Murphy Brown"). Midler also inhales onscreen as Mel Gibson’s psychotherapist in What Women Want (2000), although the scene is sometimes cut when the movie airs on TV.




#12. Ocean's 8 (2018)
Rihanna smokes in more ways than one playing a Rasta computer hacker on the female A-list, multiethnic jewel-robbing team (Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Mindy Kalig, Awkwafina, Sarah Paulson, Helena Bonham-Carter, Anne Hathaway) working to pull off a daring and intricate caper. It just goes to show you that girls can do whatever the boys do, even (or especially) when we're stoned.




#11. I Love You Alice B. Toklas (1968)
Breakthrough for its time, this Paul Mazursky film is really more of a male fantasy about a middle-aged man (Peter Sellers) who takes a walk on the wild weed side with Leigh Taylor-Young, who is luminous in her debut role as the hippie baker of brownies. Actresses Jo Van Fleet and Joyce Van Patten inadvertently get in on the brownie action, and this trailer is priceless. Mazursky brought out Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice the following year, where Natalie Wood and Dyan Cannon partake (with no perceivable effects).

Also see: Top Women and Weed Movies #1 through 10, and some Honorable Mentions too.