Classics, Old and New

Jason A. Scorza

The list of books recommended by members of the International Association of University Presidents as “must reads” for undergraduates contains few surprises, mostly just “old classics” of a traditional liberal arts education, such as Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Shakespeare, and, of course, God. Works by “usual suspects” like Dickens, Melville, Cervantes, Dostoevsky, Tocqueville, and Tolstoy also appear prominently on the list.

University presidents are not alone in rediscovering the classics. Indeed, Oprah Winfrey’s first recommendation in her recently reconstituted book club was John Steinbeck’s East of Eden (1952), which in 1955 was made into a motion picture directed by Elia Kazan. This is one rare instance in which the film, which starred a brooding James Dean in his first major role, is every bit the equal to the book which, in its sometimes heavy handed allegorical retelling of the Cain and Abel myth, does not reflect Steinbeck’s best work.

This got me thinking, first, about how history would have been different if Dean had gone on to star in a 1955 televised musical adaptation of Our Town and a 1956 docudrama based on the life of Rocky Graziano (roles that, as a result of Dean’s untimely death, went to the young Paul Newman, who today donates to charity all of the after-tax profits of his line of gourmet dips, sauces, spreads, and dressings). After this brief mental holiday, it got me thinking, more relevantly, about whether classic films, not just classics of philosophy and literature, should be taken seriously as repositories of wisdom and learning.

And, so, here is my list of the “new classics” that every university president would be advised to watch during their first year in office:

1. Horse Feathers (1932)

This subversive attack on academic mores is one of the funniest movies made by the Marx Brothers. Who can forget Groucho (starring as the president of unfortunate Huxley College) leading his faculty in a rousing chorus of “Whatever It Is – We’re Against It”? This is a lesson that all university presidents learn sooner or later: faculty like their own ideas and only their own ideas.

2. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)

In this adaptation of Edward Albee’s disturbing play, a young faculty couple (George Segal and Sandy Dennis) are exposed to the drinking and dementia of a childless senior faculty couple (Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor). The ending is frightening enough to convince most university presidents to bring their maternity (and dare I say paternity?) leave policies into the 21^st century and to build subsidized campus daycare centers for faculty and staff. It also teaches the importance of keeping the senior faculty away from the sherry and the junior faculty away from the senior faculty.

3. National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978)

Replete with physical comedy and frequent gross-outs, it might be easy to miss (or dismiss) this film’s enduring lessons about campus security, student life, town-gown tensions, student-faculty liaisons, academic honesty, Greek affairs, etc. Animal House also depicts, and in a sense celebrates, the demise of the highly politicized campus of the sixties and early seventies and the emergence of a campus culture predicated upon heavy drinking. Although this campus culture endures to this day, presumably it is nothing that a good dose of Plato and Shakespeare can’t cure.

4. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), and Indian Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

This trilogy explores innovative fundraising possibilities, as professor of archeology Indiana Jones (played by Harrison Ford) fills his university’s museum (and presumably its coffers) with the plundered treasures of antiquity. Who needs an office of institutional development?

5. Risky Business (1983)

A very young Tom Cruise plays an upper crust applicant to Princeton who very nearly blows his admissions interview while running a brothel in his vacationing parents’ home with the help of the lovely and talented Rebecca De Mornay. In the end, however, the interview isn’t the only thing that Tom nails. Lesson for university presidents? There’s more to a college education than “book learning.”

Jason A. Scorza is assistant professor of philosophy and political science at Fairleigh Dickinson University.