Modified On August 13, 2012
The churn among college students is furious. One cohort will be all squeamish about the rights of this group or that. The next will be hedonistic and brutish and boorish and do their generation’s version of swallowing goldfish.
We’ve always found college crowds to be dainty things, ready at the drop of a hat to be offended and all too ready to show their disappointment. Perhaps we performed at the wrong colleges at the wrong time.
Perhaps the current crop is different. Perhaps not.
An article in the Columbia College school newspaper about a performance five miles down the road by “YouTube sensation Bo Burnham” describes a clash on the campus of Westminster College.
Burnham is an equal-opportunity offender. Jokes about abortion clinics are told back-to-back with jokes about civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. For the religious crowd, he packed in jokes about pleasuring himself while reading the Bible.
He, of course, is playing characters throughout his performance, but for some the irony is thin. About 15 protesters, including members of the Gay-Straight Alliance, Black Students Association, International Club and the Cultural Diversity Organization held signs and rallied outside Champ Auditorium, where the concert took place.
“It’s just a plethora of derogatory and tasteless comments that I don’t find funny,” said Derick Dailey, a sophomore from Little Rock, Ark. “It’s not comedy, it’s not satire, it’s just insulting, and it’s not what Westminster College stands for.”
Dear, sweet, ignorant Derick: It is comedy. It is satire. It is insulting! And it is what Westminster College stands for! Or… at least it should be.
What ever happened to college students? They couldn’t wait to get to campus and stick a thumb in the eye of the uptight oldsters, the stuffy administrators, The Man! They were eager for almost every opportunity to offend, to shock, to break every rule. You’re not a high school kid any more. You’re not yet an adult, with all the attendant responsibilities and hassles. You’re in that in-between phase where you have plenty of obligations (attending class, getting grades, finding some sort of social life) but you’re calling the shots… and it ain’t gonna last but four years.
Drink! Screw! Puke on Main St.! Yell shit at passing seniors! Write horrifying satire and produce outrageous playlets that provoke a reaction in the tightass administrators and townies! We suppose there’s always been a contingent of students that moped around campus and tried their darndest to guilt everyone else into freeing Soviet Jewry or boycotting lettuce, but when did they come to dominate the college scene? When did they grow into Giant Wet Blanket status?
The quotes from the students who attended (and laughed and groaned and enjoyed) the performance of Burnham is refreshing– “Chill out, take it easy. It’s just words. It’s not like he’s actually burning crosses in yards.”
The drivel from the administrators is the usual, extended-pinky, politically correct nonsense designed to placate, to assuage, to smooth over–
“This is leading us to a good campus conversation,” said John Comerford, dean of students. “Our students have already scheduled for next Thursday a ‘Lunch and Learn’ to talk about this. Who should be welcome on this campus, and who should decide that?… We’re going to have these important, productive conversations, so I’m looking forward to it.”
Any guesses as to which side brings the megaphone?
Students are always told that they’re there to question the conventional wisdom, to seek truth, to challenge long-held assumptions. But why is it that, in the lively arts, they’re only allowed to be challenged by a Eugene Ionesco but not a Bo Burnham? What good does it do to attend a MEGO performance of The Madwoman of Chaillot, if they can’t also see 45 minutes of Steve Trevino? Is it that Giraudoux and Ionesco offend the proper people in the right way and that Trevino and Burnham do not?
(Many thanks to FOS Aaron Ward for sending along the link!)