Enter the tunnel of oppression

First things first. My final (for this year) article for the Daily ran on Tuesday, and if you liked it then you’re my new best friend. Really. It isn’t my favorite, because I feel that it lacks the pizzazz and hooks that I like to think some of my previous articles had in such quantity. Also, I can’t help worrying that I’m selling myself as the poster boy for lazy students. In any case, I’m currently in negotiation for a summer deal with the same publication, but they only run once a week, so we’ll see how it pans out. At the very least, you can expect to find more of my zany antics in the online version.

I took my own ill-advised suggestion and laid on the HUB lawn for a few hours this afternoon, wasting time until the HUB’s showing of About Schmidt at 8:15. Kelley and I met Nathan and Ashley in the foyer, and got sidetracked by a fun-house style exhibition called The Tunnel of Oppression set up in the ballroom. A variety of advocacy groups on campus collaborated to beat hapless students over the head with the obscene consequences of our lifestyles, delivered by endless fliers taped to the walls and volunteers who seemed to be enjoying themselves a bit much. They set up a maze of rooms walled off with black vinyl, and each section was dedicated to a separate injustice.

We started in the Hall of Homeless People, which featured cardboard signs with messages like “NEED FOOD” and “THIS COULD BE YOU,” as well as a video interview with homeless youths on the Ave. It was sad. From there we wandered into the Disability Cafe, where we were saddled upon entry with a simulated physical handicap. Kelly plopped into a wheelchair, and after an uncomfortable struggle with the volunteer I had my right arm bound to my side with a strip of black cloth. We approached the “barista,” from whom we were supposed to order a mental disability, a list of factoids served on a plate. Apparently there was some sort of visual cue to let us know that this wasn’t just a run-of-the-mill espresso stand, but if so, it was lost on me. When the volunteer behind the counter asked me for my order, I told her, “I’ll have a grande no-whip mocha to go, please.” She must have thought I was making a joke, because she smirked and informed me that only mental illness was served at this particular kiosk, but I really had no idea what was expected of me. She then gave me a dose of depression for good measure, served up an order of ADHD for Kelly, and asked if I could “keep her from causing a scene.” I wasn’t sure if it was part of the play-acting, so I said I’d do my best.

We went on to see the racial stereotypes and profiling, examine gay oppression, and have our religions (or lack thereof in some cases) ridiculed. The labyrinth ended in a room with a clear plastic ceiling on which lay fake dollar bills and coins. I batted the plastic and knocked off around fifty bucks of shoddy counterfeit currency, and told Ashley “follow my lead, break through the glass ceiling and rise above the expectations of your race!” She was too good for fake money.

About Schmidt lived up to my expectations, in that Kathy Bates did indeed get nekkid, and the whole thing proceeded at too slow a clip for my tastes. Now, I see a fair number of movies, many of them in theaters, and so consider myself something of an authority on movie conduct. I can therefore say without batting an eyelid or any other mucous membrane that HUB audiences consistently score the lowest on my scale, lower even than opening-night-Star-Wars-prequel audiences. The problem isn’t, as with the latter example, an overabundance of cheering and hooting, but rather an overzealousness and tickishness in general. They laugh at everything, whether it’s funny or not. They laughed when Schmidt discovered his wife dead beside the vacuum cleaner, as well as at every mildly-stereotypical action performed by his daughter’s white-trash fiancé. And when Kathy Bates demurely dropped her robe, the retching and groaning noises were definitely louder and longer than was strictly necessary. Don’t these people realize that their sorority-girl girlfriends are going to look very similar to that in about forty years? If they make it that long, they’re lucky. The best crowd in recent memory was at The Matrix: Reloaded in Redmond; they listened just as raptly to Morpheus’s lines as I myself did, and I missed nary a one. Must be a Redmond thing.