Saturday, January 8, 2011

Don't let your students make porn

Thanks for all the good wishes, gang.  We'll see how things develop here in Research City.

Meanwhile, let us distract ourselves with one of the more bizarre cases I've encountered of professors being blamed for no good reason: a Turkish film student with a really dumb chip on his shoulder made a pornographic film for his dissertation, which led to his professors being fired.  What cracks me up and horrifies me at the same time is that the profs clearly did everything in their power to prevent him from doing this in the first place.  First, they warned him that he had to have, you know, an idea to explore that could justify doing something so self-aggrandizing and sensationalistic.  Second, when the jackass went ahead and made his porno anyway – without, it appears, any critical engagement – his committee failed the project.  (Hey, they warned him!) 

And then the jackass gave an interview in small-minded, petty, undeserved retribution explaining why he acted on such a stupid impulse.  In reaction, as it appears, the government leaned on the university to think of the children! suck up to religious conservatives! do something, which translated into "fire everyone who tried their best to keep a problem student in line."  Now, adding insult to injury, the profs are being investigated by the police, which may be just to make the police feel better, since the person they'd really like to arrest has gone into hiding.  And, for good measure, "the entire Communications Faculty has been shut down."  

At least no one overreacted. 

2 comments:

  1. But they didn't "let" him make porn! (As your post points out.) They just failed to actually prevent him! Attention everybody: don't let your students ever act outside of your presence! *headdesk*

    I find this particularly funny because I'm an alumna of the birthplace of Porn N Chicken. And friends with the actress who accidentally got outed in the NYT as being in the film. Which resulted in her father flying to Kathmandu to yell at her during her semester abroad. Hand to God.

    The whole "hilarity/horror" value is really maximalized here.

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  2. Ajnabieh, I totally agree! Seriously, what else were the profs supposed to do? Call his parents and tell them to ground him? Tie him up and throw him in the faculty break room?

    The PnC Kathmandu business is hysterical. If we ever get the chance to have a drink together, I want you to tell me every detail that you know personally, since the whole thing has already taken on legendary status, complete with contradictory origin myths. Makes the erotic magazine shenanigans at my own alma mater look positively decorous!

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