Mitchell, Elvis. “Critic’s Notebook; Revisiting Faber College (Toga, Toga, Toga!)” The New York Times. 2003. April 2008 .

    As opposed to the more commonly accepted notion of Animal House’s shameless vulgarity, Mitchell reveals the romanticized perspective though some of director John Landis’ thoughts. Perspective changes the entire feel of a film. Though Delta house is supposed to be the worst fraternity on Faber College’s campus, it possesses the best qualities of one. Landis gave the family aspect to Delta, and gave “all of the negatives, basically Nazis” to Omega. The trouble with Animal House is that the protagonists are revolting, but with the separation and highlight of qualities, the film depicts them as portraying the positive image.
    Landis says that he visited fraternities to study them when making the film. He comments that “the fraternity wasn’t dead, but it was dying.” Many people took Animal House as a bad influence to fraternities. Since movies like this emerged, college life became more dangerous and more associated with alcohol. However, before this, Landis was unimpressed, as he calls it, with fraternities. Perhaps Animal House improved college life in the sense that it reinforced the sense of camaraderie and personal expression and exploration between students. Landis “set out to make a fairly classic college comedy.” In the simplest form, this is depicted in the famous picture of John Belushi holding a bottle of Jack Daniels sporting a sweater that says “College.” In a deeper way, Landis may have done so by simply inspiring students to have a good time while they can.

Foster, Harold M. “Film in the Classroom: Coping with ‘Teenpics.’” The English Journal, Vol. 76, No. 3. 1987, National Council of Teachers of

    English. Pages 86-88. April 2008

 <http://www.jstor.org/stable/view/818556?seq=3&Search=yes&term=%22animal+house%22&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3D%2522Animal%2BHouse%2522%3Bgw%3Djtx%3Bprq%3D%2528Animal%2BHouse%2529%2BAND%2Bla%253A%2528eng%2529%3BSearch%3DSearch%3Bhp%3D25%3Bwc%3Don&item=14&ttl=485&returnArticleService=showArticle>.

    The author thinks “teenpics” have ultimate control over a teenager’s mind. Many of them simplify teen stereotypes, such as in The Breakfast Club. The most important lesson Animal House left behind for the 1980s was “the grosser the better” (86). Foster has four goals for teachers to appropriately educate students about “teenpics.” He wants students to become “discriminating viewers,” to understand how films “influence and manipulate them,” to critique these films on an aesthetic level, and to altogether avoid the worst ones (86). However, even if films like Risky Business encourage immoral behavior, they have values and can stimulate the audience.
    Foster seems to dislike teenpics with the most likely situations. He claims that The Breakfast Club oversimplifies real characters, when in fact it reflects a realistic situation. He despises the thought of teen audiences identifying with the characters in this film. However, he could be going in the wrong direction because teen audiences probably identify with more than one, sometimes with all of the characters. This is rather a good value. Animal House similarly oversimplifies its characters: the horny misogynist, sidekick, prudish nerd, mature girlfriend, hippie professor, preppy egotist, and the disgusting freak. However, college does not divide so easily. Stereotypes create amusing caricatures, but are spawned from eclectic personalities. Foster seems to feel superior to the young generations and negligent of the narrative art form. These stories do come from reality, (Animal House specifically from one of the writer’s experiences at Dartmouth, which would be even more shocking if accurately depicted). Foster oversimplifies the purpose of films. Animal House happens to have a great valuable lesson: do as much as you can in college; Foster is only critical of films that offer no lesson of the sort or an incredibly negative one. Yet, even pursuing his four goals, some of these films, including Animal House, are still good all around.

Taylor, Bill. “Party’s over at U of T residence.” TheStar.com. 2007. Toronto Star. April 2008

    <http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/286958>.

    Gate House is a residence hall at the University of Toronto known for its juvenile pranks and behavior. Scenes of Delta’s toga party in Animal House represents this reputation, inspired by Donald Sutherland’s recounts of Gate House parties when he attended the university. After recent pranks, such as the construction of a 2.5-metre snow penis and the placement of a cooked pig’s head in a ladies bathroom, Gate House residents were kicked out and the building will undergo a major transformation. This is viewed as the death of Gate House, and of Animal House. The president is not only shutting down a residence, but a camaraderie that one member describes as unique. This will occur on the basis that acts carried out by residents were “disparaging and demeaning of women,” judged by the school’s president. The constructor of the snow penis denies this as their intention. “Ask my sister,” he says, “She’s at UofT and she’s the one who told me, ‘You’ve got to get into Gate House.’”
    This is how authority works on a campus these days. Though Animal House gives an image of this camaraderie, it ends with an unrealistic triumph that many students probably wish for Gate House. (It is not too late to happen.) It is possible that as they inspired Animal House, the film will motivate them to go out with a bang. It is hard to tell what a student’s limit is, because it is unknown whether the origin of such disturbing behavior was actuality or fiction. Furthermore, it is easy to laugh at a detestable character such as Dean Wormer who not only despises typical college life but also fails in suppressing it. However, no one wants to laugh at the president of the University of Toronto. He is actually getting away with ruining a college experience.

Elkins, Becky, Helms, Lelia B., and Pierson, Christopher T. “Greek-Letter Organizations, Alcohol, and the Courts: A Risky Mix?” Journal of College

    Student Development. 2003, American College Personnel Association. University of Pennsylvania. April 2008
    <http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_college_student_development/v044/44.1elkins.html>.    

    Alcohol is obviously a problem in college Greek life. Not only are fraternities known for binge and underage drinking, but over the past few decades they have also brought alcohol to the courts. The article juxtaposes concern for legal matters with concern for the health and progress of students who engage in more alcohol-related activities than the average person. Heavy drinking has immediate and possible indirect consequences, such as unwanted sexual situations, fighting, drunk driving, and so on. These are the cases that lead to legal matters, some of which involve death. Students have gone to court for alcohol-related cases progressively more and more since the early 1980s. However, fraternity and sorority events still prosper because members admit that “partying and drinking [are] important to them.”
    Are films such as Animal House affecting this? They certainly exhibit it. Dean Wormer of Faber College enters the Delta house, and the members are caught with alcohol, despite the failed attempt to inconspicuously hide the beers. However, all Dean Wormer can throw at them are inventions such as double secret probation and empty threats. Delta house is a danger to Faber College’s reputation, but there is not enough authority to stop them from downing alcohol at every chance. The article recommends that the universities take action to protect them legally, but to not let this intrude on or dominate over “ethical obligations to teach students to behave responsibly.” This is where Dean Wormer fails and Delta house prevails. Universities learn from these mistakes, which is why modern institutions such as the University of Pennsylvania has programs such as Fling Safe and organizations such as the Vice Provost for University Life.

Williams, Jeffrey J. “Teach the University.” Duke University Press. 2007. University of Pennsylvania. April 2008

    <http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/pedagogy/v008/8.1williams.html>.

    Williams emphasizes the importance of different aspects of the university and encourages professors to teach it. These aspects include the idea and history of the university, cultural representation, and sociological knowledge. This is one his ways of teaching the humanities. This major step between adolescence and adulthood involves the most memorable and important moments, all of which occur in the university. At the same time it mimics reality “to form the statesmen, legislators and judges, on whom public prosperity and individual happiness are so much to depend.” Cultural representations are not always serious and meaningful, but still express the “expectation of the university.” Students in Animal House expect from the university the best four years of their lives, like most people do in reality. The university should offer a whole new dimension in which one can experiment endlessly.
    This is a much more useful way of teaching humanities than Professor Jennings’ ordinary methods in the film. Williams interprets the point of college life in many ways – a precursor to the real world where students can learn to follow the rules of a democracy, and a time for breaking the rules. Animal House of course deals with the latter, and rather rejects the expected dependency on judges and other authoritarian figures. The film itself makes fun of the idea of teaching the university, since Faber College is a joke; Faber was named after a pencil and defines itself with the slogan, “Knowledge Is Good.” Williams rejects college as “an ivory tower” but stresses it’s importance as a passage onto a different, less isolated part of life. Animal House does the opposite: college is the time for students to destroy any dignity they have, but ultimately gain a different kind of dignity. Animal House is university fiction at its silliest, but Williams has a point in that films like this should still be taught and studied.

Markley, Robert. “Transgression and Irrelevance: A Reply to Geoffrey Galt Harpham.” Oxford University Press. 2006, American Literary History.   

    April 2008

    <http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_literary_history/v018/18.2markley.html>.    

    The teaching of humanities has been suffering and its components, poetry and literature, have consequentially been forced into unfortunate roles. The fault lies in those who teach humanities, because they view it as a source of payment instead of cultural enrichment. The instructors’ beliefs sprout from the cultural relevance at the time, which boils down to sociopolitical and economic stance. For example, in the eighteenth century, poetry was called “sacred to the Good and the Great.” Because of the time period, this means that poetry was at the whim of the bloody politics of England and the profits that prevailed in politics.
    In modern culture, humanists epitomize transgression and irrelevance because there is clearly no other fulfilling outcome. Therefore, the satisfaction they gain in their teachings is inappropriate and has nothing to do with the literature itself. Markley’s example of this is Donald Sutherland’s character in Animal House. He plays the bored Professor Dave Jennings who attempts to evoke interest in Milton from a completely unresponsive class. He tries to draw a connection between Milton and a teenager’s appeal, asking if Milton was “trying to tell us that being bad was more fun than being good?” Jennings ends up succumbing to this lesson of life and sleeps with one of his students. He admits to the class, possible to again inspire some relevance, that Milton is boring and outdated, only to be interrupted by the bell. Then he lets his guard down entirely when he whines about missing papers. He eliminates any passion in humanities when he yells, “I’m not joking. This is my job!” Markley’s point is that Sutherland’s character categorizes humanities as an artistic matter that can only be expressed by personal means, such as in the novel he is writing. A professor cannot force a love of humanities onto an entire generation that is college students. These students, in return, seem to lose track of anything beautiful in life and scale the purpose down to alcohol and broads. From a different perspective, what if these students do care about humanities, but only in their personal expression, that is to say in a form of a party. Do students fulfill this learning experience in concerts, wooing girls and relationships?

Robey, Tim. “THE MYSTERY OF THE FRAT-BOY MOVIE Critics hate them - but gross-out comedies top the charts. Like, why is that, dude, asks

    Tim Robey.” The Daily Telegraph. 2006. April 2008

 <http://proxy.library.upenn.edu:5591/us/lnacademic/results/docview/docview.do?risb=21_T3486769422&format=GNBFI&sort=RELEVANCE&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T3486769425&cisb=22_T3486769424&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=8109&docNo=1>.

    Robey gives the London perspective on movies as “frat-boy bacchanals,” which is apparently unfamiliar with the concept of a fraternity. His definition of a frat boy is as follows: “Frat boys slip bodily fluids into each other's pints. They view the opposite sex as a first-come, first-served ambulant buffet of hair and breasts.” With this disturbing image, it is easy to see why so many frat films receive awful reviews, being dramatically described as “a plunge into depravity.” What Robey does not understand is why all types of frat films, Jackass Number Two along with American Pie, do well. He describes Jackass as “real frat boys doing real, very painful things to each other, live on camera.” The truth is that frat boys actually do similarly horrible things. The more favorable truth is that they exploit these conquests only to those within the fraternity, not to the entire world. Robey thinks the point of some of these films (or the point of actually seeing them) could be to desensitize audiences and act as an “excruciating endurance test.”
    The film that falls into the opposite of this category, that of great frat flicks, is Animal House. One reason could be that it actually has a plot, but Harold and Kumar also makes it on the list. Robey’s point is that these films should not automatically match the need to entertain with the need to repulse. It seems that these films get more angry response for vulgarity than for racism or misogyny. Tim Matheson’s character puts on an act to sexually take advantage of the friend of his date, who recently died in a kiln explosion. So what? However, when Stevie from Jackass puts a hook through his mouth, audiences react. This is not necessarily wrong, and doesn’t give insight into a culture’s morals. It just points out what an audience isn’t used to in society. Though Animal House is a classic, Jackass is daring: no plot, no shirt, no shoes, and especially no dignity.

Guiffrida, Douglas A. “African American Student Organizations As Agents of Social Integration.” Journal of College Student Development. 2003,

    American College Personnel Association. University of Pennsylvania. April 2008.   

    <http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_college_student_development/v044/44.3guiffrida.html>.

    It is no surprise that African Americans would have difficulty integrating socially and academically into a predominantly white institution. Interviewed students admitted to changing their appearance and speech for a white crowd. They cannot easily fit into large student organizations, but instead create small ones to help maintain their ethnic identity. Universities directed student organizations in the direction of integrating African Americans into PWIs and making them comfortable. Minorities found it beneficial to attend a PWI because it prepared them for the real world, but had difficulty growing close with white students.
    Faber College is the quintessence of the predominantly white institutions talked about in this article. Animal House is entirely about the social life in universities, and the first institution to present it is the Omega House. Pretentious, WASPy phonies welcome freshmen Larry Kroger and Kent Dorfman into the fraternity house, and seat them next to the socially awkward rejects: Mohammet, who wears a turban, Jugdish, who possesses an unidentifiable ethnicity, Sidney, a nerd, and the blind, handicapped Clayton. Surely these students could never express their ethnic identity in such a tight atmosphere.
    A contrast to this image is the all-black band, Otis Day and the Knights, playing at a Delta party, whose attendees are all white. Everyone is having a great time. Otis seems like a band that would play for a different crowd at a university, and this inference is reinforced in a later scene. Delta brothers unknowingly walk into a blacks-only club where Otis performs. Boon’s, one of the brothers, disposition alters, like when he shouts, “Otis! My man!” It is clear the members of the band are not so friendly in this atmosphere. The whites have their places to let loose, which is almost everywhere as demonstrated in Animal House, and the blacks have their place to do so.

Henderson, Schuyler W. “Disregarding the Suffering of Others: Narrative, Comedy and Torture.” Literature and Medicine. 2005. University of

    Pennsylvania. April 2008 <http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/literature_and_medicine/v024/24.2henderson.html>.

    Henderson analyzes torture beginning with a photograph from Abu Ghraib that shows a man naked and in an uncomfortable position with underwear on his head. What is torture? To classify an act as torture, there must be long-term sufferings. It is a method to extract information from, punish, or intimidate a victim. The word torture draws a red flag, and the government and media have worked out ways to tone a situation down using narrative. For example, Henderson points out that Abu Ghraib occurrences have been described as abuse instead of torture, which renders the act unofficial, and therefore politically uninvolved. As far as the act itself, torturers smile during it. The purpose is to make it seem more acceptable and to “retain their humanity” by incorporating the smile – a universal understanding of being human.
    In Animal House, the Omega house tortures its pledges as a ceremony of induction. Neidermeyer literally spanks the pledges, who are bent over and clad in only underwear, in a room ominously lit by candles. The pledges must respond every time with, “Thank you sir, may I have another?” All the while, Neidermeyer has a sadistic smile on his face. Can this be considered torture, for there is a loose form of consent. Though the pledges have no say in what happens to them, they choose to join the fraternity. However, from the look on Kevin Bacon’s face, it is not a case of masochism. From the definition of torture, which makes Henderson question, “who exactly is evaluating the victims’ pain and psychological suffering,” this scene does not exhibit torture. However it does have the characteristics of a smile, secrecy and intimidation. The victims do not smile because they “are less than human…animals.” Animal House makes men into animals in the form of debauchery and tomfoolery, in addition to torture. However, the film plays down the frightening issue of torture by rendering it humourous. In reality, as politics uses the word abuse instead of torture, fraternities use the term hazing. Henderson notes that someone described the actual torture as “Animal House on the night shift.” This in turn minimizes the seriousness of actual torture.

Gumbel, Andrew. “Police raid the US student society that inspired Animal House.” The Independent. 2006. April 2008

    <http://proxy.library.upenn.edu:5591/us/lnacademic/returnTo.do?returnToKey=20_T3480786312>.

    There exists a fraternity called Alpha Delta Phi and there also exists the infamous Delta house. The latter is based on Alpha Delta Phi, but the real Dartmouth frat in turn takes on its fictional traditions, pride and notoriety. However, they disguise it as “leadership, scholarship, service and philanthropy, diversity, accountability and brotherhood.” Finally the frat brothers were caught after an investigation lasting almost two years. Their pranks are angrily blamed on Animal House.
    The ironic thing about Animal House is the source of Delta’s craziness. While Alpha Delta Phi’s mayhem supposedly comes from the made up Delta house, Delta house’s ideas come from Chris Miller’s (one of the writers’) college days at Dartmouth. So what exactly was Animal House’s role, other than simply putting a depiction on the big screen? Movies do give people expectations, sometimes false, or unrealistic standards. Animal House was an average college story to everyone who was already familiar with such college life. However, the film created a legend out of Delta Phi, and consequently impressions and reputations to live up to. These responsibilities already existed in the fraternity, just not publicly; these matters usually remain within the frat’s walls. The film was a catalyst, a cause, or an excuse. The only reason why it is viewed as such a problem is because Delta Phi became personally involved and invested. Films take on a new meaning when based on fact. Suddenly everything in it becomes possible. Perhaps there would have been a less extreme response if Delta Phi had not known about its relevance.