Five years ago, the University of Notre Dame’s Film, Television and Theatre Department and Department of Psychology created a new course, “Drunk on Film: The Psychology of Storytelling with Alcohol and its Effects on Alcohol Consumption,” that fulfills students “Ways of Knowing” requirement in their core curriculum. The course informs students on the effects of alcohol on the human brain and body, the portrayal of alcohol in media and how it subconsciously influences the way viewers consume alcohol in real life. It also debunks myths surrounding alcohol such as what normal alcohol consumption looks like compared to drinking on TV and in college culture.
The course is offered in the Browning Cinema of the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center to around 160 students every semester. By combining psychology, the arts and a topic familiar to most college students, it has become one of Notre Dame’s most popular courses with a waitlist every semester of students.
While anticipating his own children’s graduation from high school and transition into college, Ted Mandell, an associate teaching professor of film production, was inspired to create this course by his own curiosity on college drinking culture and general addiction, along with his passion for media. For the first five years of the course, the class was taught by Mandell and professor emeritus Anré Venter, who retired in May. It is now taught by Mandell and Andrea Christensen, a new professor in the Department of Psychology and the director of the Education, Schooling and Society program.
Soon after the course was founded, the University transitioned to online learning due to COVID-19. Mandell shared that they integrated some of their online strategies into the course after the pandemic.
“Some students will talk in person, but then a lot of people are a little intimidated by 160 people ... They'll share their story online,” Mandell said. Junior Anne Coffey shared these changes “brought about deeper conversation.”
Mandell shared that during the class, there is a live chat where students can anonymously contribute to the discussion or privately answer questions such as “What percentage of students do you think are intoxicated at a football game?”
At the beginning of the course, students have the opportunity to learn about the true effects of alcohol on the human brain and body. Students are able to officially define terms such as “binge drinking” or “alcoholism.” Past students praised the course for being informative and eye-opening.
Senior Caroline Pankow, an aerospace engineering major, took the course during the spring 2025 semester and described how it provided more information behind alcohol consumption.
“It was definitely an eye opener to a lot of people ... learning about what alcoholism and binge-drinking actually are, the genetics behind it and how people are more prone to that. I think that was just very eye opening and something I never really thought I was going to get from this course or from something at Notre Dame,” Pankow said.
Students also watch films, ads and various TV show episodes that might rely heavily on alcohol or even just subtly incorporate it. Then, in class students will observe clips from their viewing and dive into the way alcohol is portrayed in that specific form of media and the psychological effects it has on the viewer.
“It’s a class that is intended to get students to think about their drinking, and it works,” Coffey said.
At the end of the semester, students write a final paper about their personal experiences with alcohol and how the course has impacted them. A few of these essays are then selected to be presented as performed readings during the annual Notre Dame theater production, “RED CUP,” a play composed of students’ personal experiences with alcohol and college drinking culture.
