ABSTRACT
The "happy alcoholic" or "happy drunk" is a major type of American hero and a character type that many alcoholics aspire to become. The happy alcoholic comes in several varieties. Typically male, he may be the comic, eccentric, playboy drunk who realizes "dreams for people [alcoholics] that they cannot do for themselves". The "happy alcoholic" film supports "the idea that alcohol is normative for modern American culture and that society should help people, especially young people, to adapt to the world of drinking". The films create and sustain their own illusions of the "happy alcoholic." They keep alive the idea that there is a proper place in society for certain kinds of eccentric drinkers. In making the above comments, these films also speak, in a subversive manner, to the larger issue of men and women in 1950s and 1980s American society. The films inner comedie structures use Elwood's and Arthur's situations to make aggressive, satiric jokes about society.
