I know it’s possible to post a perfect 4.0 grade point average and not be able to function at the college level. I suspect that the student I mentioned upthread fell into that category, and I have met other college and graduate students who cannot cope with the idea that their beliefs can be challenged, and that not everyone is willing to bend over backwards to accommodate those beliefs. Most of them previously attended religious schools, so I think they grew up with a skewed viewpoint of religion uber alles.
A well-rounded literature class involves cultural studies, which includes cinema. As a former film student, a vast amount of my film studies included literature and art history. In English class, a lot of my courses included film, art history, philosophy, and components of religious studies.
Just out of interest, what academey (sic) are you referring to here?
While I tend to agree that this particular stance is not really admirable, I will admit I tend to admire people who stand by their beliefs and live with the consequences: I save my scorn for the ones that think demanding the rest of the world accommodate their beliefs makes them into some sort of hero. Martyrs weren’t made saints because their beliefs were so strong: they were made saints because they burned.
Having known many Mormon girls / young women growing up, I very well know the type. She should just transfer to one of the BYU schools where she will be spoon-fed material carefully chosen to not only not violate the arbitrarily chosen standards, but also kept from her from challenging the church ideology.
We shouldn’t complain. Ignorance is bliss.
A lot of home schoolers choose to home school precisely so that the kids AREN’T exposed to any thoughts which challenge their particular beliefs.
The problem is we let these people vote.
This. One thousand times this.
The syllabus is generally given out on the first day or at least the first week of classes. If students really want to know who is going to be showing which films, they can email the professors in advance, but the profs may not have the syllabi ready weeks ahead of the semester start, when students are registering.
These days, too, it is not a good idea to be too picky when trying to get into a class. They are only going to cut the budget even further here in CA, reducing the number of class sections available.
It’s kind of lazy to have a blanket rule for yourself that you won’t watch PG-13 or R rated films - films should be evaluated individually based on their content. The King’s Speech, mentioned above, is an example of an R-rated film I would not mind my young children seeing, although they would be bored.
But the school is right. If the student does not want to watch those films, it is her right; but college is all about exposing yourself to new ideas and perspectives. I don’t see how she can get through an English Literature class, even one with no film assignments, without being exposed to material she finds objectionable.
I had a college-level Shakespeare course in which the Professor (a failed poet whose one slim volume haunted Houston’s used book shops for years) read from his yellowed notes throughout the course. According to him,* all* of Shakespeare’s poems & plays were Freudian/Oedipal in theme. The Histories? Britain was Mom!
The course was dry as dust & I learned nothing. (Passed easily, though.) Shakespeare’s plays were meant to be performed–not dissected by somebody with decades’ old ideas & a tin ear.
Any good live performance would have helped. A fairly decent movie would have been better than nothing.
The chick in the OP should have checked the syllabus in order to avoid a course that offended her morality. Or at least figured out what was going on quickly enough to Drop/Add in the easiest time frame.
Though I think most profs - even if they don’t have the syllabi ready - could answer an email that expressed a concern…
“Hi, I’m a Freshman interested in taking your English 207 course - “British 19th Century Literature.” I’m also a devout Mormon. I would like to make sure that the course does not cover any material I might find objectionable. Will you be assigning any material that includes pre-marital sex, alcohol or tobacco consumption, children born out of wedlock, religious blasphemy, or contain inappropriate language?”
Thanx, bye"
I would feel the urge to reply, “Oh, well, I hadn’t thought of including any of that stuff, but thanks for the ideas. Now I know what to incorporate into my syllabus!”
I tell ya, she would never survive in my class. I’m showing a PG-13 and two R-rated films! Yikes!
See, and I’d have been tempted to replay “Oh, honey, even Jane Austen has premarital sex and children out of wedlock. And that isn’t even getting into D.H. Lawrence or Thomas Hardy. I think you should reconsider taking any English class.”
Well, on one hand, I do agree with you. If she were attempting to force her sensitivies upon an educational institution, the fuck her and the horse. But since she’s not, she’s only hindering herself by dropping out. In which case, the entire topic is moot, regardless of anyone else’s thought. Including my own.
On an ideological basis, though, there seems to be a prevalent trend that our civil liberties include the Right To NOT Be Offended, which does not exist on any rational plane. In that regard, if she wants the rest of us to be more responsive to her personal sensitivies (which she blames on Mormonism), then truly: Fuck her and the horse.
Breaking news…
I was showing an R-rated film today, and I had told the students in that class two days earlier what to expect: some brief but not graphic sexual content and some scattered profanity.
A student who was there that day came in a bit late today, watched for ten minutes, and decided on the basis of having seen the sex scene that she was not going to watch the rest of it. I went out into the hallway with her and explained politely that I was not going to alter the assignments and that the next film is also rated R (for language only), and that if she wouldn’t watch that one, she would have to write about the first one, which was rated PG 13. (Yeah, I know, I could have said a lot more but I was not in the mood to get into it with her.)
I have never had this happen in the past 20.5 years of teaching. Perhaps what I described in the OP is spreading. Shall I call the CDC?
Seriously…Do I have to give a breakdown of every objectionable word or scene in a movie before I show it? And why can’t some people understand that all
R-rated movies are not the same?
The stupid deserve representation, too! 
Calling a girl a whore for not wanting to watch PG13 movies?
No, they shouldn’t change courses just to accommodate a few objectors, but sheesh.
She should watch them. How else is she going to learn the world is a terrible, filthy place and that only through her faith can she climb above the licentious masses? Where is she going to get her moral outrage from!?
Heh.
Things like this make me glad I teach grad students. I show the documentary about the collapse of Enron, The Smartest Guys in the Room, in my organizational design class. There’s a scene where Lu Pai, the CFO, is being described… the guy was a strip club aficionado, and hence the scene is in a titty bar. And yes, a couple of employees are shown at work. I tell my students about the scene (as well as the re-enactment of a high-ranking Enron official’s suicide). I have devout Christians, parents, international students… and the response is invariably the same: “Dr. Hollow, we’re adults… we can handle it.” (And it’s not like they’re all thirty-something - I’ve got a number of folks who finished their undergrads a year or two earlier. But the difference between 18 and 22 might as well be light years, maturity-wise.)
I’m the one who usually squirms the most during those scenes. Like I’m expecting my dean or the provost to walk in unannounced as some exotic dancer shakes her 34D’s on the projection screen.