The Collegian Wednesday, March 28,1990
Letters to the Editor
Reader wants Good Friday
celebration on campus
Dear Editor:
Good Friday is of the utmost importance to those of the Christian
religion. Denial of the right to actively worship during the time of
12:00 to 3:00 when Christ died on the cross is unfair to many
students at Bchrend.
A celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday recently
occurred on January 15 , 1990. This celebration is important in the
education of Behrend students and the strengthening of tics between
different cultures.
To not celebrate Good Friday in the same manner is to suggest
that the event which occurred, as many students believe, on this day,
is not of relative importance in the strengthening of the Christian
Faith.
I am suggesting that not only the education concerning culture,
but also the education concerning faith is necessary. A religious
ceremony should be held from 12:00 to 3:00, and classes should be
cancelled at this time. Mandatory attendance would not be necessary,
but as many of the students at Bchrend arc actively practicing
Christians, a ceremony would be a gesture of respect from the
campus toward the student majority.
As we celebrate the ending of racial diversity, so should we
celebrate the sacrifice made for us all on Good Friday.
Proffinds faults
in Spanos f view
of ignorance
Dear Editor:
Christine Spanos seems to have the knack of aggravating
professors out of their usual stupor and into impassioned letters to
the Bchrend community. First Professor Hume-Gcorge was forced to
defend diversity, now I feel impelled to promote ignorance. Because if
what Ms. Spanos is attacking is ignorance, than that is what I must
defend.
The last ten years have seen an increasing number of books
published bewailing and bemoaning the lack of cultural reference
points among the recently educated. The authors of these books
generally have an agenda of Dead White Western European Males to
promote, and I generally don't agree with them. I favor diversity.
Now Ms. Spanos comes along and disagrees with them also. She
feels that to be educated, one must follow the latest big story on TV.
She cites the Iranian Hostage Crisis and The Challenger Explosion as
her examples. No longer should one be able to identify Shakespeare,
Mozart and Rousseau; now the mark of a well-rounded education is
that you know who Marla Maples is.
I, too, have an idea of what constitutes education. To me
education should serve two functions: to expose people to those
things which are important in living their lives, and to give them the
ability to choose the things which are good. The second part steers us
into the realm of morality; I'll save it for a later paragraph. The first
part really does lead to a need to make lists of standard things to
learn. From my field, Materials Science I can pick a few quick
examples of what constitutes a basic education that everyone
attending high school should have. They should be able to tell steel
from aluminum, polythylcne from polystyrene, and all of those from
wood. To go beyond my little field, every educated person should
know a triangle when they see one, should know in what country
English was first spoken, and should be able to name their three
favorites among the ten commandments. (I like the one about graven
images).
None of these things can be learned by watching television. In
fact, quite the opposite is true. They can be forgotten by watching
television, they can be not learned because one was learning
something else, but most likely they can be rendered unimportant by
watching television, and replaced by the ability to tell Coke from
Pepsi. Because if one is a typical 18 year old in North America, one
Now I understand why I haven't been able to
trust the judgement of movie critics when they
review comedies.
The answer was revealed when a major movie
studio said it was banning Gene Siskel and Roger
Ebert, the country’s most influential film critics,
from screening previews
The studio is upset because Siskel and Ebert,
while guests on a TV show, ridiculed one of the
studio's recent releases.
So for an indefinite period, it will not invite
Roger and Gene to private screenings that are
held for critics.
That's good. The studio will be doing a favor
for Siskel and Ebert as well as those who trust
their judgment on which movies they should see.
Especially comedies.
Jennifer Ruse
4th semester
Biology
For years, I haven't trusted any movie critic
when they review comedies.
My distrust began when the Steve Martin
movie "The Jerk” came out. Siskel and Ebert
panned it. But I'm a Steve Martin fan, so I went
to see it anyway. I thought that if it was as bad
as they said, I could just get up and leave.
Instead, I laughed from the beginning to the
end. So did the rest of the audience.
When the movie was over, I wondered if there
was something wrong with me. And with the
rest of the audience. Were we dimwitted for
laughing at something the critics said wasn't
funny? And when I learned that "The Jerk" was
one of the biggest hits of the year, I wondered if
the nation's movie-goers were all missing a few
bricks.
I pondered those questions until I remembered
something I learned when I was a teen-age usher,
first at the Marshall Square Theatre, then at the
Chicago Theatre. During those two years of
ushering, I saw countless comedies. And I knew
after the first showing whether a comedy would
be a box office success or a Hop.
It's a simple rule. If a comedy makes an
audience laugh a lot, it is funny. Therefore, it's a
successful comedy. If it doesn't make the
audience laugh a lot, it isn't funny. Therefore, it's
not a successful comedy.
That's it. There is no other way to judge
comedy. Either it makes people laugh or it
doesn't. That's the whole point of comedy.
But film critics bear a heavy mental burden.
They must see just about every film that comes
out. And it isn't enough that they just watch.
They must also become experts in cinema.
(Cinema is what used to be known as the
movies.) As experts, it means thay must
understand the intricacies of direction, production,
cinematography, film editing and how to make
fake blood squirt out of actors' ears and noses.
They have to know about cinema veritc, film
noir, and whether a movie is of this genre or that
genre, and they have to be able to pronounce
genre. (No, it isn't Jcn-ree, the way I say it; it's
zhan-ra, the way the Frenchics say it.) Why the
critics can probably explain the duties of the
"gaffer,” the "best boy,” and all those other
people listed in the credits, which is beyond most
mortals.
In other words, while they watch a movie,
they must do more than watch. They must also
analyze and think and seek meaning.
Mike Royko
Siskel and Ebert at
Cinema World
Mike Royko
That's fine while watching something
profound, such as the Oscar-winning "Chariots of
Fire," which they greatly admired, despite its
being one of the dullest movies ever made.
But the last thing you want to do when
watching a comedy is analyze, think, or seek
meaning. If you sit there trying to decide if a
comedy is in the Jerry Lewis genre, the W.C.
Fields genre, the Abbott and Costello genre, the
Woody Allen genre, or the Three Stooges genre,
you'll be so busy wading through genres, you
won't be sure if the guy slipped on a banana peel
or doggy-doo.
So that might be why I frequently think
comedies are funny after the critics say they
aren't. In fact, if a critic pans a comedy, that's
enough to make me see it, and I'm seldom
disappointed.
Their problem is that they see comedies at
private screenings with other film critics, all of
them silting there thinking, analyzing and
sorting through genres. I'm no film critic, but I
know that nobody ever busted a gut while
fretting about a genre.
But now that the studio has banned Gene and
Roger from private screenings, they'll have to go
to regular movie theaters to see that studio's
movies.
I don't know what effect this will have on
their critiques of action movies, or blood
squirting movies, or movies in which everybody
yells s— a dozen times.
With comedies, though, iheir jobs will be
made easier. In fact, they won't even have to
look. If they so choose, they can just close their
eyes and sit back and listen. If everybody laughs
a lot, give it three or four stars. Believe me,
that's all there is to it. At least in the funny
genre.