Today we discussed Dan Savage and his upcoming TV show Savage Campus. It was enlightening and informative to hear the various opinions/arguments for the different sides. Seeing it from an MTV point of view if Dan Savage just sat there and nonchalantly asked broad questions about sex on campus, relationships, etc then it would be a fairly dull TV show. Viewers want to see the honest “dirty” side of students. However students are very reluctant to truthfully say what they want sexually.
Are we just scared that we will tarnish Rhodes integrity? Why don’t we honestly say what’s going on? We must be too scared to tell the nation about the promiscuous nature of our students and wide use of stimulant and depressant drugs. We must not want to admit the astronomical problem of drinking and driving among students. Should we pretend that rape never happens on campus? Why are we scared? Eventhough all these activities are done by certain individuals and not descriptive of every student, it happens at Rhodes. Rhodes College accepted every student interviewed in this show. So what makes you say that they can’t give their view (screwed as it may be) about Rhodes sexuality when they have just as much of a voice as any one of us?
We are being naïve and immature by not acknowledging that controversial activities happen on college campuses, especially ours. Even though Savage’s crew is pushing people to make comments they would be reluctant to say, he is painting a realistic portrait of what goes on in college. Sounds like we are scared of the truth. Sounds like we want to control the words of our interviewed peers even though they have just as much right to be heard as we do. Don’t get me wrong, I signed the petition like John Hancock but I’m being devil’s advocate and acknowledging there are two sides.
I'm not sure if the biggest reason people are upset is due to fear of looking bad on television. It seems to me that the concern is more misrepresentation (that MTV will only show the poor aspects of Rhodes' social life) as well as the students feel as if they did not have a voice in the matter of this event.
ReplyDeleteRhodes had the right to do this, but the protestors' point are still valid.
Peter I signed the petition as well, but I also didn't feel that the protest was necessary. No one was forced to talk to Dan Savage or to be interviewed. They volunteered themselves, meaning they wanted to tell their point of view, despite it not being completely representative of the whole.Stuff happens at Rhodes that people never even think of twice, yet it happens ALL THE TIME. We are not perfect, and this school definitely is not, so why try to portray it as being such? I have no clue.
ReplyDeleteAndrea if the concern is misrepresentation, shouldn't looking bad fall under that? Because if someone believes they're being shown as something their not, it's normally because of their fear of looking bad. Yes we did not have a say in Dan Savage and MTV being here, but people used their own free will to interview and participate.
As was discussed in class, many of the questions asked by Dan Savage and the MTV Crew, were leading questions; therefore, I think that individuals who voluntarily agreed to be interviewed for the show did not realize how skewed their own portrayal as well as the portrayal of the school would be. No two individuals have the same two stories to tell, and while one story might be more controversial than another individual's story, I think that it is important to get the two sides. Understanding that this is a documentary by MTV rather than the History Channel, next time people should go into the interview prepared for mode the questions will be asked. You do not go into court thinking the prosecutor will ask only the easy questions that are not meant to lead individuals to tell the truth. They ask questions to create the answers they need to hear.
ReplyDeleteI won't speak for all of the protesters, because God knows several of us had different reasons for protesting, but I will say that claiming that we are "scared of the truth" about what happens at Rhodes in regards to sexuality is not why we were protesting and not why we oppose the show. The people involved in the protest, including myself, are some of the most involved students on campus and in the community with issues of sexuality, sex, and gender. We are in no way ignorant nor embarrassed to discuss/acknowledge these issues. On the contrary, we have been trying to get people to talk about healthy sex and relationships in our various student groups with little interest from the student body until this point. Therefore, we are excited for the opportunity to take this opportunity to start campus conversations that people will pay attention to about these issues, but I do not see MTV filming the "juicy" or dramatic side of Rhodes to be the way to educate our students. What is the point of this show? Is it education? We thought so, which is why we were excited when we heard Dan was coming to campus. In the process, we have learned that the purpose MAJORLY seems to NOT be education, but to make a juicy tv show. Therefore, the only "benefit" I see from this show airing is the supposed "any publicity is good publicity" statement, which is still not a benefit in my mind given the aforementioned failure to wholistically represent the campus. However, there are literally dozens of consequences that have arisen throughout this entire process, prompting me to ask, what are people's reasons for any continued support of this show?
ReplyDeletePeter, I totally agree with what you said as the devil's advocate that people are scared of the truth if they don't want other people to talk about things, they might not support.
ReplyDeleteI know, it is maybe a little bit too big, but I can not help but think of what it means to have something like a Democracy. A very famous german politician, Helmut Schmidt (5th German Chancellor from 1974 until 1982) once said: "In a Democracy, everybody has the right to be wrong". That means that the rest of the society needs to accept other and maybe wrong positions. It is hard to accept, but they have the same worth and same value as every other (and from a personal perspective of course better) opinion.
Applied on our case here, people definitely need to accept that there is "right" perspective of the live at Rhodes. Everybody experiences his life here differently, does different things and therefore has different stories to tell.
So everything what people say is Rhodes!
Of course, we all know that MTV is only gonna take the "weird" stories, because that's the way TV works. If Rhodes doesn't want to take part in that play, it shouldn't have agreed on that deal. This is why I signed that petition that the students should have had a vote on that.
I think that although you may be right that in answering MTV's questions people are shedding light on topics that are relevant here at Rhodes, it is still important to have a fair representation. MTV is looking to entertain, therefore they are most interested in the stories that audiences will find interesting and shocking. So although the stories may be true, they are not true for everyone and it is important that Rhodes not be defined by the extremes or by the instances of a few.
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