TUESDAY, O C TO BE R 2 5 , 2 0 1 1 — T H E M A N E AT E R
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13
The opinions expressed by The Maneater columnists do not represent the opinions of The Maneater editorial board.
POP CULTURE
LIFE
Of academics Scary movies: The good, the
and apathy
bad and the ‘horror’-ble
Garrett
Richie
Remember that time when you used to invest 100 percent of your effort and enthusiasm into your gen-ed classes?
Yeah, me neither.
Or, how about that time when you blew off those gen-eds
and finally decided to get serious with the classes you were
excited for?
Yeah, still me neither.
If you’re anything like me, aka a college student, your
morning lecture classes probably go something like this:
-Spend 15 minutes trying to connect to Mizzou Wireless.
-Sigh dramatically to yourself at the relative inactivity of
early morning Facebook.
-Land dejectedly on Reddit and half-heartedly type notes
in between memes.
Sound familiar? Sure it does, nothing out of the ordinary.
But here’s where it gets concerning, at least for me.
I head to my favorite class of the semester: sociology.
My professor is a nice guy, the topics are interesting and
the texts for the class are engaging enough that I actually
invest time into reading them. During class, discussions are
interesting and I participate because they seem more like
conversations than a bunch of people vying for participation points.
But now I’m sitting here working on what I’d like to
become a column, trying to figure out why I’m not consciously investing myself in the class.
Basically, I’m coming up on the middle of my second
year at MU, perhaps the halfway point of my undergraduate academic career, and the vision I once had of years of
interested academic engagement and “Dead Poets Society”esque collegiate endeavors hasn’t really appeared to me yet.
Am I the only one that sees a problem here?
Maybe it’s just me. I could be getting lazy. Maybe undergraduate classes are supposed to bore me. Maybe it gets
better, or maybe I need to.
I usually blow through my homework as quickly as possible to get an A and move on. That’s what it was like in
high school, and it seems like it was that way for most of
my friends.
I figured I’d just fly through my classes in high school
until I got to college, and then I’d start taking an interest in
class. I said that last semester about entering my journalism
sequence. Now I’m saying it again a few days after receiving
my acceptance emails for the magazine sequence and the
Missourian with J4450 queued up on my MyZou wishlist.
What happens when we say we’ll get serious right after
we graduate? What will our resumes look like if we wait
around to get serious until we get jobs, if we even get them?
What if we just end up sliding by again? My English major is
already pulling against me, so I can’t really afford to do that.
If we’re paying thousands of dollars and spending years
of our physical prime sitting in classes, are we going to want
to look back and say we just slid by and came out with the
bare minimum for a degree?
With college degrees quickly becoming the new high
school diploma, is merely having one going to promise a
blossoming career, six-figure salary or even any minimal
sense of financial security? Or how about basic satisfaction
with the job we land?
I’m not sure if I’ll be able to use the Facebook excuse
anymore if I’m asking myself these questions.
If I’m minoring in Spanish, should I be spending all that
time and money just to buzz through the homework and
get an A?
I don’t think so.
Although I’m still taking classes, it wouldn’t hurt to
start looking up the words I don’t know and start investing
some effort into becoming bilingual, not because I haven’t
put in enough work to succeed in class, but because I want
to learn, not just earn an A. And we all know those don’t
always have to overlap.
If I can switch my motivation from getting A’s to actually
learning something (or just making both happen simultaneously), I might be able to enjoy the classes I have an interest
in and find a way to make the boring ones more bearable.
From now on, the only exciting thing in class won’t be
the exclamation point on AirPort telling me I’m not getting
on the Internet today.
And I’ll start taking more notes in English instead of
writing the remainder of this column.
David
Adams
Although I had a fantastic
weekend, there’s one thing I’m
pissed about: I didn’t have any
time to see “Paranormal Activity
3.” As a self-proclaimed horror
buff, I have a hard time admitting
that. Good horror films are like
gold to me — rare and treasured.
Notice how I said “good” horror films. I had no intention of
ever seeing “The Thing,” “Dream
House,” “Apollo 18” or countless
other crappy horror films that
premiered this year.
In fact, before this weekend,
the only worthy scary movies
of 2011 were both released in
April: “Insidious” and “Scream 4.”
Seriously, “Scream 4” was completely underrated when it hit
theaters, so check it out on DVD.
It’s the best of the series since the
original.
Only other horror buffs will
understand my passion and
excitement for the genre. Some
people just don’t understand that
being terrified is one of the ultimate forms of entertainment and
pure fun. There’s nothing like
seeing a terrifying movie in a
packed theater. Like laughter and
hiccups, screams can be contagious. Spilling all your popcorn
after you jump two feet in the
air or accidentally squeezing the
stranger’s hand next to you is all
part of the experience.
My favorite scary movies are
predominantly gore-free. Most
directors these days don’t understand that the unseen can be
infinitely scarier than showing
gallons of blood. Not to say that a
bloody slasher flick can’t be great,
but the greatest horror movies
slowly build tension and rely on
suspense rather than torture.
I’m talking about classics like
“Rosemary’s Baby,” “Halloween,”
“Alien” and “The Shining.”
These films require patience
and demand your full attention.
That’s why it sickens me that
most of what passes as horror
today is nothing more than halfnaked bimbos getting each of
their limbs torn apart.
The first “Saw” film was excellent. There was a sense of mystery and the gore was left for
the grand finale. But the sequels
that followed were little more
than “Law and Order: Tortured
Victims Unit.” There’s no fun in
the genre of torture-porn. Alfred
Hitchcock would be rolling in his
grave if he weren’t cremated.
Thankfully, that trend seems to
be dying. But on the flip side, the
amount of horror films released
in theaters seems to be on the
decline. None are being released
until January 2012, and even
those seem to be average, at best.
All of the recent scary movies are direct-to-DVD and
Netflix gems like “Bloodlust
Zombies” starring Alexis Texas,
“BreadCrumbs,” a take on “Hansel
and Gretel” about an adult film
crew lost in the woods and “Diener (Get It?)” which pretty much
explains itself.
Movies so bad they’re good can
be awesome, but I want to watch
a horror movie that is so good it’s
great. “Insidious” was a gem and
should be spoken of in the same
breath as “Poltergeist” and “The
Exorcist,” but a fantastic modern
horror film is all too rare.
Hopefully, when I get around
to seeing it, “Paranormal Activity
3” will impress me and leave me
with many sleepless nights.
POLITICS
FBI takes positive step
forward and redefines rape
The new rape definition
will come into effect in
early December.
Megan
Zagorski
Last week the FBI voted unanimously to change its definition
of rape. This is the best news I’ve
heard in weeks.
The FBI’s current definition
of rape, “the carnal knowledge
of a female forcibly and against
her will,” has been in place since
1929: more than 80 years ago!
“Outdated” is an understatement
here, and it’s an extremely narrow
and hugely flawed definition.
Most inaccurate is the idea
that rape can only happen to
women, when in fact about 10
percent of rape victims are male,
according to the Rape, Abuse and
Incest National Network. This
definition also excludes instances
of anal or oral rape, statutory
rape, as well as other methods of
assault. Thirdly, it requires the
use of physical force, opposed to
other methods of coercion, therefore eliminating cases of date
rape, where the need for physical
forces is replaced with the use of
drugs or alcohol.
To put it another way, this is
similar to only counting homicide cases that involve guns. A
murder is a murder, regardless
of the method or weapon. Rape
is the same way, and the FBI is
finally coming to see that idea.
Rape and sexual assault are
much bigger problems than most
people realize, and the FBI’s
underreporting, thanks to its
outdated definition of rape, has
only aided that misconception.
The FBI’s 2010 Uniform Crime
Report indicates that about
89,000 “forcible rapes” were
reported to police. The United
States Department of Justice
National Crime Victimization
Survey indicates that there were
more than 200,000 cases of rape
and sexual assault — more than
twice what the FBI reported. Part
of this huge discrepancy can be
attributed to the large number of
rapes that go unreported, which
is a topic for another column, but
part of it is a direct result of what
the FBI considers rape.
The FBI’s “forcible rape” terminology excludes a huge percentage of sexual assaults. For
example, nearly a quarter of
the rapes reported by the New
York Police Department in 2010
weren’t recognized as “forcible
rape” by the FBI, and therefore weren’t entered into federal
report figures. Meanwhile, the
Chicago Police Department operates on a more comprehensive
definition of rape than the FBI,
and therefore none — that’s right,
NONE — of its nearly 1,400 rapes
were included in federal reports.
The proposed new definition
would read, “Penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or
anus with any body part or object,
or oral penetration by a sex organ
of another person, without the
consent of the victim.” This is a
huge improvement on the previous definition. It covers pretty
much every kind of rape there
is. This will, of course, cause a
jump in recorded rapes, but this
jump will set the new baseline for
future, more accurate reporting
of rape and sexual assault.
The new definition won’t be
formally put into place until
early December, but it’s a huge
step forward. By broadening the
definition of rape, hopefully law
enforcement, and society in general, will begin to give voices to
rape victims.