Jackson Katz at Rollins

In The Chronicle of Higher Education’s article, The New Misogyny reminded me of an event that happened not to long ago at Rollins College. During Fall 2014, Rollins had a speaker named Jackson Katz, and he came to speak about men’s violence against women. When he came to speak the freshman were required to attend one of his talks, which made for some interesting conversation on Yik Yak. Within the span of an hour, there were hundred of Yik Yaks in regards to his lecture. Most, if not all, were negatively bashing his message about men’s violence against women. 

These are just a few of the nasty comments that were posted during Katz’s talk last Fall. I was absolutely appalled by the amount of sexist language, which came from a place that I thought was super progressive. I thought the campus climate was quite neutral, but after I saw these Yaks, I thought that I had stepped back in time. Granted, I know that most of the students that were posting these comments were freshman, and “there is a tendency for students to change in the direction of institutional peer norms” (Schuh, Jones, and Harper 2010, 44), so that can be taken into account.  I know these Yaks are not a full representation of the male student population at Rollins, but it does make me wonder.

John Schuh, Susan Jones, Shaun Harper, ‪Student Services: A Handbook for the Profession (John Wiley & Sons, 2010), 43-58

Religious discourse

            There are many shows like South Park that like to poke fun at religious and political discourse, such as Family Guy and the Daily Show. Both shows do a good job at addressing subject matters, which might seem a bit too offensive to talk about. A chapter called Muhammad’s Ghost: Religion, Censorship, and the Politics of Intimidation by Ted Gournelos discusses the controversial episode of South Park called “Cartoon Wars I”, which addresses the blasphemes taboos of creating a character out of the Profit Muhammad. While South Park has very witty and timely reactions to discourse from around the world, there are some shows that are addressing perpetual discourse of on going topics. The musical, The Book of Mormon, is an example of a religious discourse because it is overtly talking about the Mormon religion.  The musical is a nine time Tony winner and was written by South Park creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone. The plot of the musical is based around religious satire that pokes fun at the Mormon religion. 

This YouTube clip is from the opening scene of musical, and is a good depiction of the religion satire that Parker and Stone are trying to convey. The characters in the opening number are made to look like the nicest people you will ever meet, but from 1:40 to 1:44 you can see the crazy of the religion come out. It is found that "Mormons (Latter-day Saints) volunteer and donate at much higher levels than other groups" (Curtis, Cnaan, Evans 2014, 2015). So, through the use of religious satire, The Book of Mormon has been created to address and depict the inner workings of the Mormon religion by over exaggerating the personalities and practices of Mormons. 

1.  Curtis, Daniel,
2. Cnaan, Ram. A, and
3. Evans, Van. "Motivating Mormons."Nonprofit Management and Leadership. October 18, 2014. Accessed April 5, 2015 

Censorship

            Censorship and public media seem to coincide together, and I find it quite annoying. In my opinion, people are just looking for something to freak out about, and are making a mountain out of a molehill.  I greatly applaud Trey Parker and Matt Stone (creators of South Park) for addressing many touchy social and or cultural topics that appear in the media. While South Park is constantly tapping into satire and humor of current political events, there are some forms of media that attempt, but ultimately fail. I guess you could say that the movie The Interview was one big form of censorship, due to the amount of controversy that appeared internationally. The 1915 case of Mutual Film Corporation vs. Industrial Commission of Ohio, “ Supreme Court ruled that movies were not part of the nation’s “press,” and therefore that state censorship of motion pictures did not violate the constitutionally guaranteed of freedom expression “ (Wertheimer 1993, 158). This ruling should have protected the movie, but the U.S was pressured, and ultimately breeched the ruling made in 1915. The North Korean government took the stupid comedy starring Seth Rogan and James Franco way too seriously, and terrorist threats were made, if the movie were released. Seth Rogan and James Franco were just trying to make a comedy about the ridiculousness of the North Korean government, and were berated far more harshly than a simple movie critic review. The controversy was not made to protect the American public, but rather the North Korean public.