EDITORIAL: BACKPAGE

Satire points to a truth often denied

If talking about date rape is tantamount to advocating it, then there are a heck of a lot of people guilty of advocating rape. We think most reasonable people would agree, however, that talking about date rape is not tantamount to advocating it. Fortunately there are a lot of people in our society who understand that it is very important that attitudes and feeling related to this issue are talked about. Moreover, some people have exerted great effort to be sure that date rape is talked about. This effort has included the Rice campus.

Some of that talk has been in the form of satire. While usually the Backpage avoids becoming too political, satire is an enormously important part of politics, humor, and the dynamic of a changing society. Satire has been a major source of commentary for millennia.

The Thresher is not going to stop satirizing the Rice experience because someone is offended. Last week's Backpage was exactly that, a satire, and was one of the better pieces we've printed in a while.

Some people do not seem to have noticed that the play "Mixed Signals" uses similar hyperbole to criticize problem attitudes that exist on this campus. The play portrays a Rice male upperclassman in a stereotypical light to bring attention to the dangers of sexual assualt on campus. Most of the men on the Rice campus would be offended if they felt this fictional character was meant to accurately represent their attitudes. Still, the hyperbole does its job: it brings the danger to light.

Stifling this sort of hyperbolic satire and any other speech that denegrates a self-deluding "Rice image" is very dangerous to this campus. Inane hand-wringing about the precious "Rice image" may have come to be expected from some administrators -- but from students? It is far more important that these issues be printed and discussed than for anyone, especially students, to maintain naive illusions about O-Week.

Yes, last week's Backpage was offensive. But it was offensive because it portrayed a reality some would like deny.

It may not be common knowledge, but the Supreme Court has recently confirmed parody and satire as important art forms in the function of a free society. And the best parody isn't meant to be read easily. This Backpage edition was a strongly satirical criticism of O-Week from someone who should know.

Eric Stotts should be applauded for having the courage to voice his point of view. After having coordinated an O-Week, he is in an excellent position to criticize how it is run at Rice. One would hope that his criticism sparks action on these issues rather than complaints about what satire a free society should be "allowed" to read.

The letter states that " A Realistic O-Week is about the saddest commentary I have ever read about the Rice Community. The frightening part is that, especially in the past, this hit all too close to home."

This is exactly why it is so enormously important that this sort of commentary be aired on this campus. The letter complains, "But the colleges have worked very hard at changing this,..." Good for them. Maybe they need to do something a little more, however, since the administration has attempted to assert more control over the O-Week planning process.

We do not take this as the "right direction" to be moving. Something different needs to be done.

The letter also asserts in its defense of the modern O-week that "... Jacks have become funny..." This year two Brown students were arrested while participating in an O-Week activity. Is this funny?

The letter demands that we "at least keep private opinions out of `publicly' funded publications," is simply silly. Did the critics read what they signed? What are they saying?

The statements are inconsistent with the very action of submitting a letter. Why write a letter to a newspaper if one doesn't want private opinions publicaly expressed?

The fact is that all opinions expressed in the Thresher are private ones; even the staff editorial represents only the opinion of the majority of the staff. To think otherwise is to believe that there is only one correct collective opinion that can be printed in a public paper.

But like it or not, there will be widespread differences of opinion on every issue -- even on how to handle sexual assualt awareness during O-Week, as the torrent of letters to the editor last semester demonstrated.

What needs to be reformed is not the Backpage, but the views which it satirized: attitudes toward O-week and the less than stellar adviser-freshman relations which have garnered O-Week its reputation. Stotts did not think up the situations presented on the Backpage; he observed them.

We can only reiterate again the message the Thresher printed last week in Lee Hsia's letter on Sexual Assault Awareness week, which we photographed on the front page in "Shock Treatment," which we have printed countless times in the past -- and which we print again with your letter to the editor: "Speak up! Make noise! Protect your rights! " This is something the Thresher always advocates -- sometimes through satire. And we're not going to stop now.

It is not time to silence the critical. It is time to listen.

This item appeared in the Opinion section of the March 18, 1994 issue.

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