2008 Woodie Awards
LETTER: Ambitious changes may not be founded in reality
Issue date: 2/15/08 Section: Opinion
Originally published: 2/14/08 at 7:13 PM EST
Last update: 2/14/08 at 7:13 PM EST
Regarding Press-Republican reporter Stephen Bartlett's recent profile of Student Association President Angel Acosta's idealistic outlook for Plattsburgh State, the admirable Acosta is a beacon of optimism, that's for sure. Though I don't want to be cynical, I wonder if Acosta is fully cognizant of the enormity of the task at hand, given what needs overhauling both lower and higher on this campus.
For example, fresh from reading Bartlett's article, I encountered drunken frat boys targeting a hapless pedestrian with snowballs, and shortly thereafter in the Angell Blue Room, an advert for the ACB Film Committee's season opener, "Saw 4," of all things.
If the S.A. office is pursuing an unprecedented "holistic" vision of a "sense of family" as envisioned by Acosta, while down the hall is an administration-sponsored screening of something from the most revolting trend in exploitation-movie history, then we have a problem.
Having just donated a compilation of classical music-oriented film clips to a PSUC music-appreciation class per a new approach to sparking student respect for the greatest music of all time, I'm commiserating with the course instructor over how 'torture-porn' in the Cardinal Lounge has not done art and culture at PSUC any favors.
What students choose to view in private is one thing, and their own business.
Over at Angell, it's quite another story.
Neither a censorship nor prudishness issue, this is about a healthy dose of common sense. And screening "Saw 4" in the Cardinal Lounge would only have made sense in the context of a public forum examining the cause/effect dynamic of ultra-violence in entertainment (such as it is).
Nearly three decades ago, during my days with the S.A. Film Committee as it was then called, we never remotely considered touching torture-porn titles of that era with the proverbial ten-foot pole. I still recall film-rental catalogs offering the unconscionable likes of "Make Them Die Slowly" and "I Spit on Your Grave."
For example, fresh from reading Bartlett's article, I encountered drunken frat boys targeting a hapless pedestrian with snowballs, and shortly thereafter in the Angell Blue Room, an advert for the ACB Film Committee's season opener, "Saw 4," of all things.
If the S.A. office is pursuing an unprecedented "holistic" vision of a "sense of family" as envisioned by Acosta, while down the hall is an administration-sponsored screening of something from the most revolting trend in exploitation-movie history, then we have a problem.
Having just donated a compilation of classical music-oriented film clips to a PSUC music-appreciation class per a new approach to sparking student respect for the greatest music of all time, I'm commiserating with the course instructor over how 'torture-porn' in the Cardinal Lounge has not done art and culture at PSUC any favors.
What students choose to view in private is one thing, and their own business.
Over at Angell, it's quite another story.
Neither a censorship nor prudishness issue, this is about a healthy dose of common sense. And screening "Saw 4" in the Cardinal Lounge would only have made sense in the context of a public forum examining the cause/effect dynamic of ultra-violence in entertainment (such as it is).
Nearly three decades ago, during my days with the S.A. Film Committee as it was then called, we never remotely considered touching torture-porn titles of that era with the proverbial ten-foot pole. I still recall film-rental catalogs offering the unconscionable likes of "Make Them Die Slowly" and "I Spit on Your Grave."
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