# College student objects to films shown in class **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 24, 2011, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-objects-to-films-shown-in-class/579600 "2011-04-24T23:59:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-objects-to-films-shown-in-class/579600/21 "2011-04-25T02:01:20Z")
> [@Palooka](#): > > I think reading Shakespeare’s plays is focusing on the words, so it’s appropriate. I’d say the same for reading a film script, if that matters. You’re kind of missing the point. What if she had to read novels with graphic sexual content or language? ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-objects-to-films-shown-in-class/579600/22 "2011-04-25T02:06:27Z")
The girl’s a dipshit. As the old joke says, you can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think. > [@Palooka](#): > > Watching movies in English class strikes me as pretty stupid 'cause English is about literature and films aren’t literature. English and the humanities in general largely deal with [texts](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Text_%28literary_theory%29), which are much more general than just literature. There’s nothing off here, at least as far we can tell from the details given. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-objects-to-films-shown-in-class/579600/23 "2011-04-25T02:08:58Z")
I’m not sure what to say except that the student is obviously ridiculous. ---
**Author:** ![antonio107](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ea924/32.png) [@antonio107](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antonio107)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-objects-to-films-shown-in-class/579600/24 "2011-04-25T02:09:43Z")
In my undergrad, one of my favorite professors taught a class on film music (I’m a music major, but it was cross-listed as a film and music course). He put a disclaimer in the syllabus saying that there was material in some of the films we’d watch that some viewers may find objectionable, and that you should strongly consider whether or not you want to take that course. Same tagline you get on the Food Network before Gordon Ramsay comes on. Big deal. We didn’t watch backdoor sluts nine or nothing. It was like, The Jazz Singer and Moulin Rouge. But it’s incumbent upon the prof to make that clear on the outset of the course if anything may even possibly offend, in the most cursory fashion. You don’t have a right to not be offended, but I think you ought to be told, “Hey, first day of class, we’re going to watch a clown get raped and then dissected. You might wanna drop without financial penalty if you’re squeamish to this kinda thing.” My two cents, at least. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-objects-to-films-shown-in-class/579600/25 "2011-04-25T02:17:41Z")
> [@antonio107](#): > > In my undergrad, one of my favorite professors taught a class on film music (I’m a music major, but it was cross-listed as a film and music course). He put a disclaimer in the syllabus saying that there was material in some of the films we’d watch that some viewers may find objectionable, and that you should strongly consider whether or not you want to take that course. Same tagline you get on the Food Network before Gordon Ramsay comes on. Big deal. > > We didn’t watch backdoor sluts nine or nothing. It was like, The Jazz Singer and Moulin Rouge. But it’s incumbent upon the prof to make that clear on the outset of the course if anything may even possibly offend, in the most cursory fashion. You don’t have a right to not be offended, but I think you ought to be told, “Hey, first day of class, we’re going to watch a clown get raped and then dissected. You might wanna drop without financial penalty if you’re squeamish to this kinda thing.” My two cents, at least. I think a professor should give a syllabus on the first day of lecture, and that syllabus should have on it required reading and viewing. But it isn’t up to the teacher to assume what people may or may not find objectionable. Because, frankly, people are offended by strange things. According to the OP - some of the movies she is objecting to are PG-13. ---
**Author:** ![Hippy\_Hollow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hippy_hollow/32/4841_2.png) [@Hippy\_Hollow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hippy_Hollow)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-objects-to-films-shown-in-class/579600/26 "2011-04-25T02:23:55Z")
College prof checking in here. **vivalostwages,** you’re right, of course. I think the professor was way too nice in his/her explanation, though. Your personal issues are not a reason for making an accommodation. ADA (and good pedagogy) requires that we make accommodations for students whose ability to understand or function in the environment is compromised. Professors don’t have the time to customize the course to your specifications. That’s what I would have said. Here in Texas (and at my university, generally) we’re required to have a syllabus available for students to review before the first day of class. This student should have reviewed the syllabus and opted not to enroll, case closed. Now I have a “weasel clause” that says I can change the syllabus if the need arises. But I imagine a prof showing films plans this well ahead of time means that these are not shoehorned in at the last minute. I really hate students who feel that their professors are the equivalent of educational personal shoppers. She can enroll in a college that meets her “standards,” but by no means should a professor, department head, or dean have to waste their time dealing with this “complaint.” Oh, and also, I agree with **Dangerosa**. Not my call to determine what might make you uncomfortable. If you’re _sensitive_ it’s incumbent for you to do the work to find out what assignments might put you off. ---
**Author:** ![antonio107](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ea924/32.png) [@antonio107](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antonio107)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-objects-to-films-shown-in-class/579600/27 "2011-04-25T02:26:43Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > I think a professor should give a syllabus on the first day of lecture, and that syllabus should have on it required reading and viewing. > > But it isn’t up to the teacher to assume what people may or may not find objectionable. Because, frankly, people are offended by strange things. According to the OP - some of the movies she is objecting to are PG-13. Fair enough. Give out the material and let the students wikipedia it. Of course, it was a courtesy by my prof, which probably saved him the potential headache of something like that OP… ETA’: my bad. I thought the OP was talking about a lawsuit. Yeah, because everyone who did a BA is a moral degenerate… ---
**Author:** ![Palooka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/palooka/32/2902_2.png) [@Palooka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palooka)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-objects-to-films-shown-in-class/579600/28 "2011-04-25T02:29:38Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > You’re kind of missing the point. What if she had to read novels with graphic sexual content or language? I didn’t miss the point; I explained why I felt movies didn’t belong in an English class. The information provided doesn’t make it clear what the girl’s objection to the material is. However, I can say from experience, that the written word isn’t nearly as effective as film at conveying sexual content (No one reads Playboy for the articles.) So some material difference exists between the two media and maybe that’s the critical difference for that woman, if sexual content is the problem. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-objects-to-films-shown-in-class/579600/29 "2011-04-25T02:57:37Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > Oh, since this is IMHO… > > In college I was a film student. We did watch porn… For one class we actually watched _child_ pornography. We had a guest speaking from the FBI and part of her lecture involved watching a film consisted of (heavily censored) clips of seized material. It was profoundly disturbing to sit through (& that’s an understatement). It wasn’t listed in the syllabus per se, but our professor was quite clear that anybody who felt uncomfortable could leave. We weren’t actually graded on anything in that presentation. ---
**Author:** ![antonio107](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ea924/32.png) [@antonio107](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antonio107)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-objects-to-films-shown-in-class/579600/30 "2011-04-25T03:04:20Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > For one class we actually watched _child_ pornography. We had a guest speaking from the FBI and part of her lecture involved watching a film consisted of (heavily censored) clips of seized material. It was profoundly disturbing to sit through (& that’s an understatement). It wasn’t listed in the syllabus per se, but our professor was quite clear that anybody who felt uncomfortable could leave. We weren’t actually graded on anything in that presentation. And I’m guessing this wasn’t film studies, but rather…psychology? Criminology? Some kinda ology, I hope! ---
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-objects-to-films-shown-in-class/579600/31 "2011-04-25T03:07:31Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > I’ll refrain from making general statements about Mormons and just agree that the student needs to suck it up or go back home and be a slug. Agreed. Taking a class is a choice, if you don’t like it you don’t have to take it. (I would be more concerned if this was a required class or all of a set of required classes were “offensive.”) > [@](#): > > Fuck her and the horse she rode in on. Whoa, what? Someone else having different opinions from you, and accepting the consequences of your beliefs, suddenly entitles you to treat them like that? I’d be calling her out if she was lawyering up and forcing the school to cater to her political correctness, but in this case, this sort of _intolerant_ response is unworthy of you. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-objects-to-films-shown-in-class/579600/32 "2011-04-25T03:17:09Z")
Is this the first class she’s dropped for such a reason? > [@Palooka](#): > > Sucks that she had to drop the class 'cause of her religious views. Without knowing the details it’s hard to really judge, since you don’t know if there was a reasonable and easy-to-implement alternative instead. Watching movies in English class strikes me as pretty stupid 'cause English is about literature and films aren’t literature. Guess you gotta attract people somehow. The statements above strike me as pretty stupid. When I was in college, we would watch some of the films that were based on the books we were reading. For instance, in my Shakespeare course, we watched Branagh’s _Henry IV_ and _Henry V_ when we were reading the plays. When I was in high school, we watched parts of _To Kill a Mockingbird_, Roman Polanski’s _Macbeth_ (not the nude scenes), _Much Ado About Nothing_, _Of Mice and Men_, etc. ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-objects-to-films-shown-in-class/579600/33 "2011-04-25T03:18:41Z")
Now I’m really curious as to what the movies were and what the class really was. I never once took a class in college just called "English. Hell, if I remember correctly the film appreciation class at my school might have been under the English department’s umbrella. ---
**Author:** ![chizzuk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e36b37/32.png) [@chizzuk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chizzuk)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-objects-to-films-shown-in-class/579600/34 "2011-04-25T03:29:46Z")
What about students who are offended by animal dissection? I feel like a lot of the same arguments about “academic freedom” and “part of the curriculum” and “broadening exposure to things you don’t like” apply but I took a lot of bio classes and in every single one students who objected to it for ethical reasons were allowed to explain themselves and do an alternate writing assignment and it was made very clear to us that they would not force us to do it. This was in both high school and college. What makes that a more legitimate reason to refuse to do something? I also remember being shown films in religion classes and the professor warning us when a nude scene came up so people who didn’t want to see that could turn away for a minute. And this was at an incredibly liberal school, not a BYU-type place. I guess she did that because it wasn’t on the syllabus and the class wasn’t on subject material that would make such things relevant. ---
**Author:** ![appleciders](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-objects-to-films-shown-in-class/579600/35 "2011-04-25T03:34:11Z")
Watching films of Shakespeare, in particular, seems reasonable. (Most of) Shakespeare’s work is written to be performed, and while seeing a stage production might be preferable, there might not be one showing on campus, for free, during class hours, and so a film version would be substituted. Oh, and while I sympathize with the girl, I can’t imagine a professor going very far out of her way to make alternative assignments. Who has that kind of time? ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-objects-to-films-shown-in-class/579600/36 "2011-04-25T03:43:36Z")
> [@vivalostwages](#): > > Student signs up for an English class, then discovers that Prof is showing some films that have PG-13 or R ratings. When did she make this discovery? One would think it’d be the first day of class, when she read the syllabus…which would have given her ample time to drop the class and pick another. I find the idea of watching a lot of movies in a college level English class strange. It’s par for the course in high school, but college? I took many English classes (I have an English Education degree) and the _only_ class we watched even parts of movies in was Shakespeare. And even then, it was just short clips as parts of required group presentations. If people wanted to see the films based on what we were reading, they rented those movies themselves. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-objects-to-films-shown-in-class/579600/37 "2011-04-25T03:54:45Z")
> [@antonio107](#): > > And I’m guessing this wasn’t film studies, but rather…psychology? Criminology? Some kinda ology, I hope! It was a psych class on child & domestic abuse. IIRC it was joint listed with the criminal justice dept. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-objects-to-films-shown-in-class/579600/38 "2011-04-25T04:17:40Z")
> [@chizzuk](#): > > What about students who are offended by animal dissection? I feel like a lot of the same arguments about “academic freedom” and “part of the curriculum” and “broadening exposure to things you don’t like” apply but I took a lot of bio classes and in every single one students who objected to it for ethical reasons were allowed to explain themselves and do an alternate writing assignment and it was made very clear to us that they would not force us to do it. In my high school, I believe they had a computer program where you could actual do a “virtual disection”. **alphaboi867** , I have to say, there’s no way on earth I could watch that. THAT I would have to skip. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-objects-to-films-shown-in-class/579600/39 "2011-04-25T04:40:36Z")
> [@Palooka](#): > > I think reading Shakespeare’s plays is focusing on the words, so it’s appropriate. I’d say the same for reading a film script, if that matters. Reading a play or film script doesn’t allow you to engage the material. You might as well say architects should stick to blueprints and not look at finished buildings: It isn’t the same experience, and it denies students a very valuable experience for no good reason. Have you even taken a real English course? Not necessarily college-level, but worthwhile: I took an English course in high school that involved watching a number of movies of Shakespeare’s plays including, yes, the Branagh _Hamlet_ and a particularly good _Titus Andronicus_ that likely accounts for my continuing affection for that gory piece of bombast. It is the sheerest ignorance to even imagine that what I did to those films _wasn’t_ up to the standards of a reasonable English class, _or_ that I could have done the same things _without_ those films. You _could_ disagree, but then you would be wrong. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-objects-to-films-shown-in-class/579600/40 "2011-04-25T05:04:56Z")
She seems comparable to a creationist who wants to opt out of sciences because of objections to the course material. College is for learning, not reinforcing your own beliefs. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-objects-to-films-shown-in-class/579600.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-objects-to-films-shown-in-class/579600.md?page=3)