From: wlah...@gmail.com   
      
   On Wednesday, January 5, 2022 at 9:00:11 AM UTC-5, Lenona wrote:   
   > Remember Jedediah Purdy (born in 1974, in West Virginia), who was   
   home-schooled, went on to Harvard and Yale and is now a professor of law at   
   Columbia?    
   >    
   > At Harvard, in 1993, went to the annual screening of "Love Story," and was   
   horrified...by the audience's behavior. (As I remember, he was kind of naive   
   about movies in general and what makes a good one or a bad one - plus, he   
   certainly wasn't used to    
   dirty or nasty jokes being told in public.)    
   >    
   > From Gawker:    
   >    
   > ...The New York Times Magazine had discovered Jedediah, in 1999, by way of   
   Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., which was making Jedediah a published author at the age   
   of 24. Jedediah was, for the purposes of the Times Magazine and Knopf and   
   perhaps his own purposes,   
    a representative or leader of what seemed to be a nascent movement against   
   what was then being called "the ironic sensibility." (The Believer and   
   Julavits's essay were still over the horizon, and for lack of the word   
   "snark," people were using "irony.")    
   >    
   > Jedediah, accustomed to the simple gracefulness of country life, had been   
   turned against irony by a traumatic experience on arriving at Harvard College   
   in 1993. The Times Magazine described it:    
   >    
   > There is a custom at the university of screening "Love Story" for incoming   
   freshmen, who gleefully heckle the film. You can guess the gibes: Ali   
   MacGraw's first appearance is met with shouts of, "You're gonna get cancer!"   
   When she steps into a cab,    
   somebody yells, "To the morgue—and step on it!"    
   >    
   > Appalled by such cavalier treatment of a serious illness, Purdy stomped the   
   perimeter of Harvard Yard, then dashed off a letter to The Crimson. "I felt   
   this was a hideous practice," he says. "Placing this at the beginning of the   
   orientation seemed an    
   induction of students into a cold, self-satisfied manner."    
   >    
   > Mocking the use of cancer as a tearjerking movie plot device may not be   
   precisely the same thing as mocking actual cancer. But Jedediah, or the   
   version of Jedediah in the pages of the Times Magazine, worked in broad   
   themes. People responded to those    
   broad themes. The piece was a sensation. Perhaps irony was bad. Perhaps it was   
   sanctimony that was bad. "The glumly virtuous young Purdy could have used a   
   little ironizing himself," David Denby recalls, in Snark...    
   >    
   > (snip)    
   >    
   > From The Harvard Crimson:    
   >    
   > NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED    
   > September 24, 1993    
   > "I am writing in response to Jedediah Purdy's letter concerning 'Love   
   Story.'    
   >    
   > "The purpose of the 'Love Story' showing is to entertain the first-year   
   students with a movie about Harvard while mocking the popular culture of the   
   early 1970s. Our commentary is not designed to mock cancer or the pain it   
   causes both its victims and    
   their family and friends. The jokes and comments are meant to be taken   
   lightly; however, we recognize that some may be seen as offensive and obscene.   
   The choice to view 'Love Story' is a personal one. Before all four showings on   
   Thursday night, members    
   of the audience were informed of the nature of the jokes and encouraged to   
   leave the film and get back their ticket money if they did not feel   
   comfortable with our commentary.    
   >    
   > "We regret any hurt that Purdy and others felt due to our showing." Allison   
   J. Koenig `94 President, Crimson Key Society   
   "We regret any hurt that Purdy and others felt due to our showing." Allison J.   
   Koenig `94 President, Crimson Key Society   
      
   Does Harvard still show the movie?   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)