Facts matter. Truth matters. Journalism matters.
Salt Lake City Weekly has been Utah's source of independent news and in-depth journalism since 1984.
Donate today to ensure the legacy continues.
Film School
Back to School ’07: What you’d know about college if you believed what you saw in the movies.
By MaryAnn Johanson
It’s August, which means it’s disgustingly hot, there’s crap at the multiplexes and kids are getting ready to go back to school.
Suckers. I, proud university dropout, am of a mind with Mark Twain, who never let his schooling interfere with his education. But I can’t help but feel like it’s time to buy some marble notebooks and maybe a new book bag. Remember how Meg Ryan said in some otherwise-stupid movie that autumn makes her think of bouquets of freshly sharpened pencils? (It was You’ve Got Mail, I’m pretty sure.) I still feel that way, too.
So, I thought: Hey, I’ll write about everything that movies about college have contributed to our education about this thing called life. But it turns out, there aren’t really all that many movies about college—far fewer, certainly than there are about high school. Maybe that’s because it’s still a minority of Americans who go on to college or university after high school. Still, there is plenty of wisdom to be gleaned from the limited number of films set in colleges about what you might expect to find there. To wit:
* You’re doomed to die horribly and violently at the hands of a homicidal madman. I mean, obviously. You’ve dared to defy the odds, for one, by attending an institution of higher learning, so that marks you out as deserving to die merely for your arrogance. Plus, you’re probably inordinately hot, which is a sure draw for the serial killer on a rampage. See Scream 2, Urban Legend.
* Speaking of inordinate hotness ... You’ll instantly look about 29 years old, and be totally buff/gorgeous and fuckable, the moment you enter college. C’mon. Everyone in college films looks a decade older than he or she should. Hell, everyone in high school films looks 29. Wouldn’t college (and high school!) have been awesome if everyone was as gorgeous and confident and sophisticated as what The Movies tell us students look like?
* You will not actually spend all that much time in class. Not with all the road trips to be taken, and stuff. See Animal House, Road Trip, The Sure Thing.
* You wouldn’t learn anything from the time you actually did spend in class, because you’ll be stoned all the damned time. See pretty much every movie about college ever made.
* If you’re smart, you’re doomed to be miserable. Which is weird, because isn’t it supposed to be only the smart people who get into college in the first place? But see Revenge of the Nerds, Good Will Hunting.
* Nerds are freakin’ hilarious. This is related to the smart-but-doomed meme: Conventional folks should learn a lesson from the mutant smart and simply not demonstrate anything that could be evidence of an IQ over 125, because, what, you want to be seen as a weirdo? See Revenge of the Nerds, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes.
* And anyway, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If you don’t have a conformist romantic relationship, you’re not entirely human. See I.Q.
* Universities are hotbeds of intellectual ennui, endurable only because of the rapacious amounts of sex everyone is having, unless they aren’t. See Wonder Boys, which is actually one the best movies ever made about being a writer, and one of the best movies about being smart in a sea of dumb—and hence one of the best movies about being a college student.
* The professors? They’re more screwed up than you are. Because if there’s anything worse than spending four years at an institution of higher learning, it’s spending your whole life there. See A Beautiful Mind, Wonder Boys.
* College doesn’t really teach you anything you need to know to succeed in life. You learn all that stuff outside class, from older women who seduce you or by dealing drugs to your fellow students or by working for the Mob. See The Graduate, Rules of Attraction, The Freshman.
* Sports—and by being, ahem, an athletic supporter—is where it’s at. Who needs academics? Extracurriculars are the shiznit, man. See Rudy,
Drumline, Horse Feathers.
* College is how they finalize their indoctrination of you into the conformist lifestyle. See Accepted.
* Girls who go to college are so, like, totally adorable. Isn’t it cute how they try to improve their brains and stuff? See Legally Blonde, Mona Lisa Smile.
* College sucks, but later on you’ll look back and consider it the best years of your life. Pathetic. See Old School.
More by MaryAnn Johanson
-
Feature movie review: Rare Objects
A grounded approach to trauma helps director Katie Holmes' adaptation overcome an overstuffed narrative.
- Apr 12, 2023
-
Fall Features
A preview of the cinema offerings coming to big and small screens before year-end.
- Sep 7, 2022
- More »
Latest in News
