This week, it was reported that the CDC estimates about 3 million women “are at risk of exposing their developing baby to alcohol because they are drinking, sexually active, and not using birth control to prevent pregnancy.” Or as the Los Angeles Times’ Jessica Roy put it:
“You may think you’re just another carefree young woman, casually sipping mimosas at brunch or having a glass of wine at the end of a long day. But you’re not. According to the CDC’s new recommendation, you’re a potential fetal incubator — a fact you should be aware of, and planning around, at all times.”
In defiance of the tone and aggression in the warning, we’re looking back at the drunken antics of women on film — who may or may not be on birth control (gasp!).
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Elizabeth Taylor’s Martha has the mouth of a sailor and loves a good mind f*ck, as long as the booze keeps flowing. Taking vice to the extreme, she drunkenly eggs on husband George (Richard Burton) in an explosion of fury and vitriol. The couple battles it out over a bottle in a deranged display of one-upmanship.
No big deal — just Bette Davis’ washed-up movie star Maggie Elliot taking a drunken ride through the streets of Beverly Hills — in a mock, inebriated Hollywood stars tour — with her Oscar. The actress used her own real-life golden statue for the scene.
Charlize Theron’s alcoholic author Mavis Gary loses her goddamn mind at a party where she intends to steal her high-school sweetheart back from his wife, leading to an extremely uncomfortable reveal about the couple’s personal life.
“One of the most exhilarating stylistic and psychedelic explosions of the 1960s is Vera Chytilová’s highly aggressive feminist farce Daisies, which erupts in all directions,” writes Jonathan Rosenbaum of the 1966 film. Here, total anarchy is two women behaving badly. The friends eat and drink themselves into a delightful oblivion in nearly every scene. Men try to ply the girls with liquor hoping for some action, but the booze just becomes a catalyst for more trouble-making and impulsive behavior.
Being a bridesmaid is so hard, as drunk Kristen Wiig’s Annie on an airplane can attest to. Seat-crashing, Hitler jokes, and a ’90s reference that makes no sense coming right up.
Joan Crawford’s neurotic man-eater Helen spends most of Humoresque weeping and drunk, throwing shade at a piano bar musician (“Why don’t you hire a good trombone player, Teddy?”), smashing her glass in a fit, and doing anything she can to win a certain man’s heart.
When mom is so overbearing, you go boozing, pop a molly, and come home to have sex with your ballerina classmate (who is actually just a figment of your warped imagination) right under her nose.
Drunk prom queen haircuts at teenage house parties are always a bad idea.
Drunk in the sink with the cat alert.
Raiders of the Lost Ark’s Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) has a high tolerance for booze and can often be found drinking men under the table. But she’s only in it for the money.