Would a trigger warning before showing 1965 Othello film have saved this professor?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What would happen if a music history professor showed West Side Story?

I took a history of film night class as a fun thing to do at the local university less than 5 years ago. The showed the 1927 film The Jazz Singer in which Al Jolson does appear in blackface. It's considered an important film because it definitively ends the era of silent films. No waring was given and nobody seemed to freak out. I can't imagine what would of happened today.

Not appropriate. If there were any Black people in the class, they were probably too demoralized by the political climate 5 years ago to think anything would be resolved if they spoke up. My nephew deals with racist comments every day at his military academy. He says it is no use to speak up and he just wants to graduate and forget about the place. Silence doesn’t mean it’s fine.

[Anonymous]

The university is cutting off its nose to spite its face. I’m sure the Professor is looking at other and better offers. Maybe he will be back but maybe he will be at another school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Reporting I've read says that this undergraduate seminar in music composition was meant to center on Verdi's Othello, as an example of how to build an opera score and libretto from an already existing narrative.

That's certainly a reasonable topic for the seminar to pursue. But what's not reasonable is the decision to show the Olivier film on the first day. A seminar that focuses on Othello would begin with the Shakespeare play, and have students read the text. Then discuss different issues in staging--including the long history of blackface performance. Maybe bring in a theater historian to talk about 19th century stagings of the play. And from there, you might go to the Verdi, and maybe onto other musical or operatic reworkings of narratives from other sources. Or maybe more adaptations and reworkings of Othello.

Really, I can't imagine a reason why anyone would begin a class on this topic with this film. I wonder whether it was out of some misguided attempt to get the students familiar with the story without having them actually read the play.

Perhaps as opposed to reporting, we could see the actual syllabus.

[Anonymous]

Didn't read this thread, but this cancel culture is just out of control.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What would happen if a music history professor showed West Side Story?

I took a history of film night class as a fun thing to do at the local university less than 5 years ago. The showed the 1927 film The Jazz Singer in which Al Jolson does appear in blackface. It's considered an important film because it definitively ends the era of silent films. No waring was given and nobody seemed to freak out. I can't imagine what would of happened today.

Not appropriate. If there were any Black people in the class, they were probably too demoralized by the political climate 5 years ago to think anything would be resolved if they spoke up. My nephew deals with racist comments every day at his military academy. He says it is no use to speak up and he just wants to graduate and forget about the place. Silence doesn’t mean it’s fine.

+1 I took a lot of history / theory of film classes. You can't just show a film like The Jazz Singer or The Birth of a Nation and talk about cinematic innovations as though the films are only formal constructions and don't have actual content with meaning and significance. It's just a bizarre thing to do to ignore that content.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is McCarthyism now, pure and simple. Only coming from the left instead of the right.

I'm a lefty, and don't know anyone who would do this to such a professor.

I don't know WHO makes these stupid decisions.

Middle aged people are learning that they do not fit the definition of liberal by today’s standards. A recent DCUM thread called the Clinton presidency conservative.

My concern is that this professor and others like him don’t seem to have a way to redeem himself. It’s a one and done deal.

I’m middle aged and Clinton’s presidency certainly was conservative! That’s what he is known for: pulling the Democratic Party right of center. Making it pro-corporate. Demonizing and ostracizing progressives and liberals., this Sister Soulja moment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just FYI, if you use "cancel culture" as though it's a real thing, I am going to know you're not seriously engaged in understanding much of anything.

Why do you think this isn’t “cancel culture”?

Did someone lose a job that was essential to their survival? Does that person have no hope of getting a similar position that will allow them to continue to function in their chosen field?

Or some someone lazy/sloppy about following developments in their field, or deliberately offensive, and are they receiving consequences as a result?

Precisely. It wasn't "cancel culture." It was sparkling consequences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Geez, it's simple. Don't show things that use blackface. It's offensive, even on Olivier. Are there no other Othello productions he could show?

Yes, there are, including an excellent performance by Lawrence Fishburne as Othello, not in racist minstrel facepaint. Or there are Royal Shakespeare Company recordings available. But he chose not to do that. He made his choice and it had consequences. Poor baby.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Geez, it's simple. Don't show things that use blackface. It's offensive, even on Olivier. Are there no other Othello productions he could show?

Yup — unless you’re teaching about blackface. This was a music composition class. Not clear why he was showing this film, but presumably whatever point he was making could have been made in a different way (using a different example, separating audio from video). And you always make strategic decisions like this when teaching — you don’t want the noise to drown out the signal.

Seriously. Such crap. "He haaaaaad to show the film with blackface, because of the music!"

Wrong answer. The music is available separately. Not to mention it wasn't a film scoring class. Just more excuses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does this mean Hamilton is banned too, or is that ok?

I missed the part where actors in Hamilton were in blackface.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does this mean Hamilton is banned too, or is that ok?

I missed the part where actors in Hamilton were in blackface.

I missed the part where Hamilton had good music.