The University of Iowa’s cancelation of the 1970s 3-D skin flick “Disco Dolls In Hot Skin” seems pretty silly. Interim Vice President Tom Rocklin pulled the plug on the Bijou theater’s midnight showing of this cult classic because he says that pornography is “not in the public interest.”
Yes, a lot of porn is horrible, misogynous and degrading to women, but it’s not as if the Bijou was showing a porno purely for prurient purposes. This campy period piece falls more in a film genre you might call “unintentionally funny” — featuring mustaches, body hair, a semi-coherent plot and low-rent 3-D vision. It is no more explicit than other films shown at the Bijou fairly recently (such as “Antichrist,” “Shortbus” and “This Film Is Not Yet Rated,” all of which contain non-simulated, graphic sex).
I have a suggestion for Rocklin: If you don’t want to generate national coverage or multiple headlines like “Bijou has shown porn before, won’t show it this weekend,” then don’t be so ham-handed in your censorship. For a university that just forked over $200,000 per year for a “Strategic Communications” officer — in a year of layoffs, no less! — you’d think that things would have gone smoother.
Earlier, Bijou Executive Director Evan Meaney told the Press-Citizen, “The school is very accommodating and supportive of free speech, and they recognize this falls under that.”
This, of course, was before the screening was shut down by Tom “Thought Police” Rocklin (relax, the Orwell reference is just a joke).
I imagine the administration wants to be safe and avoid blowback from the Iowa Legislature, but these spineless acts lead to an insidious form of self-censorship. It’s a slippery slope. In a budget crisis, student-run organizations probably will think twice about programming anything that might be controversial or unconventional. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Bijou’s funding will be disproportionately cut next fiscal year, though I hope I’m wrong.
As the faculty adviser of KRUI, our excellent student-run radio station, I hope this kind of paranoid micromanaging isn’t a new trend at the university. Instead of arbitrarily canceling an event that an authority figure finds objectionable, why not hold a public forum so that we can debate the Bijou’s programming decision? We should have more free speech and expression on a college campus, not less — but then again, it’s a brave new world that we’re living in.
Kembrew McLeod
Associate professor of communication studies
University of Iowa