from the workforce:

Every Friday, I teach a section of Intro to Cinema. I’ve got a good group, I think, though they were particularly unresponsive this last Friday. I’m blaming it on Spring Break because even I wanted to check-out early. But I didn’t, because we were discussing an article about how art is political, a thesis with which I agree completely. So I arrived upbeat and, dare I say, bouncy.

“I know these articles can feel like a bit of a slog,” I said as I stood in front of the class, “and I know you’re all looking forward to tearing out of here today, so where would everyone or anyone like to start? Who wants to take the wheel? What arguments did you buy or not buy?”

I stood, eyed wide with chalk in hand, ready to scribble their insights all over the board. I wanted an eruption, a crackling debate, or even a sign of comprehension. But instead they dead-fished me: mouths open, eyes glazed, and bodies barely upright.

Finally S raised her hand and said, “I guess I don’t understand why he thinks the frame story of the film changes the main story so much.”

“Thanks, S. That’s a great place to start, and it’s probably a common confusion, so let’s dive right in. What do we think?”

We hammered out the main story in which a very average Joe bucks authority and exposes the madness inherent in said authority. The frame story, however, situates this average Joe as not so average. He’s crazy, in fact, and has been diagnosed and is being healed by the very authority figure he’d put away in the main story. Not so subversive anymore, eh?

There was some light debate about whether or not the man was actually crazy. I asked how the story might change if he was or was not crazy. One student raised his hand and said, “We’ve done that, though—put people away because they didn’t fall in line, not because they were crazy.”

“Of course,” I said. “Can anyone think of an example?”

“Homosexuals.”

“You bet. Scarily recent, too.”

“And women, right?” asked another student.

“Yes.”

“When did they put women away?” asked a boy.

“It wasn’t limited to just one specific time period,” I said, “but one example was when women got really tired of just ironing and breastfeeding and cooking all day, and the medical community was all, ‘How can you not be fulfilled doing this? You’re biologically wired to perform these tasks. Oh no, you’re hysterical!’ So naturally the answer to all this irrational hysteria was to, you know, lock them bitches up!”

And then I had a flash of what unemployment might feel like. But the class laughed and I worried less that one of them would report me to the school authorities.

At 12:50, I cut them loose. I hope they spend the week sleeping in and watching good and bad movies—and maybe they’ll think, just once, about its political agenda. And I hope I have a job to come back to.