National Lampoon's Animal House was a turning point in film's depiction of higher education. Before the movie hit theaters, college was supported by the unrelenting and unrealistic myth that it was a necessity to obtain success in later life. Animal House, however, completely rejected the college myth. As a result, college comedies since have been defined by the staples of Animal House: sex, drugs, anarchy, crude humor, and an unrelenting beating of the worth of academia.

    In her critique of fifty comedies, Bernheimer boldly claims that Animal House "changed the face of comedy forever." (112) Though not one of the best comedies, it so perfectly captured the sentiments of the era's youth subculture that it became a "milestone" in movie history. (109) The film took "antiauthoritarianism" to new highs, while at the same time pushing taste to a "new low." (109) This paved the way for an "endless" slate of "tasteless" comedies aimed at the youth market, forever changing the marketing that dictated Hollywood. (109) It was so successful amongst the youth culture because it brought the kind of "crude, rudely irreverent" comedy that was similar to that of improvisation groups and TV sketch comedy that was extremely popular with teenagers at the time. (110) The heroes of the film were identifiable misfits that refused to take college seriously or respect the "repressive forces" than want them to conform. (110) Belushi's character, Bluto, reminded the audience that even if you "goof off" in college, you could still succeed. (110) In fact, the movie was the first to make a "complete mockery" of the college institution. (112)
    This article confirms many theories of other articles, including the anarchist nature of the film, the lowbrow comedy, the misfit unity, and the attack on education. All of this transformed the depiction of college in film from an institution of higher learning to the college stereotype we now know. In addition, Bernheimer claims Animal House changed how college-themed movies were made and marketed in Hollywood. It made filmmakers realize that college-themed movies should be specifically made for and marketed to a youth audience by using the popular "crude" humor (and the six themes from Thomas and Heldenfel's article). As said in Bernheim's book, Animal House launched a series of similar comedies made specifically for its audience.

  Thomas and Heldenfel's homage to Animal House describes the film as a "raunchy, testosterone-laden, anarchic comedy." Before it was released, many believed it would be a forgettable, cheap comedy." Landis admitted that he had no idea how popular the film would become; it went on to gross over $100 million. Yet, Animal House was more than just a successful comedy. According to these two men, half a dozen modern comedic elements can trace their roots back to Animal House. Many comedies depict class warfare (Trading Places, 1983), especially when it comes to poking fun at the academic establishment. Marijuana is now almost always shown in college-themed comedies. The movie established sex as a major theme by "blowing away the notion of what was permissible in film comedies." Gross-out humor became an idea that future comedies built the entire movie around. Animal House brought about the concept of slackers banding together as one unit to fight back against their oppressors. Finally, John Belushi's presence in the film helped launch the film career of many other SNL cast members.
    This article confirms the hypothesis that Animal House was a major turning point in comedic film. Unlike the other articles, which deal with the more theoretical and symbolic changes of the college comedy, this article cites tangible movie elements that movies adopted from Animal House. Five specific aspects: class warfare, marijuana, sex, gross-out humor, and the slackers, became notable recurring themes of future films. Though Animal House was certainly not the first film to have these elements in them, it created the new college stereotype, which almost always included all of these five elements. This article shows what makes up the new stereotype of college after Animal House.
 

    In his article, Orr tackles five college-oriented lessons learned from five different movies. He begins with Risky Business (1983). Noting that many movies have dealt with comedic ways of gaining entrance into college (make a large donation, pose as a minority, etc.), none had yet thrown out the most obvious choice: "make your admissions officer happy." The Paper Chase (1973) is remarkable in showing all of the don'ts that can be made in college (like sleeping with your professor's daughter). Though he admits it is now somewhat dated, Orr believes Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) is insightful in that it shows that academic faculty can be miserable like their students too. Kicking and Screaming (1995) portrays all the fears that come with the end of college. However, it is Animal House that, he claims, "invented the modern college movie." Orr comments that Dean Wormer's advice to Flounder in the movie. "Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life son," has been firmly ignored by ensuing college movie generations. Claiming it was as "influential as Star Wars," Animal House has come to "define" Hollywood's modern traditions of comedy.
    Orr's article is important because it recognizes Animal House's role as a turning point for college comedies. It claims that it became the definition of what a college comedy is today, especially with its crude sense of humor. However, Orr's article is also important because it noted that Animal House is not the only college-themed movie to have an impact. Specifically, the ideas of gaining entrance through "different" methods, tortured faculty, graduation anxiety, and all the ways one can screw up in college have all been made important in other films. Yet, it is important to recognize the significance Orr gives to Animal House over the other films, recognizing it as the most influential of the films on college comedies today.

 

    Bird's critique against the institution of higher learning aptly begins with the first chapter's title: "The College Mystique." Bird believes a "great majority" of college students are there for almost every reason besides to learn: whether it is because it is the thing to do, because they cannot get a job, because it is the only way their parents will continue to support them, etc. (3) Students are there because they are not needed; no one has anything against them, but no one has anything for them either. (12) As a result, many students are unhappy at college. College is a way for both parents and children to "gracefully" rid themselves of each other. (18) Further, one does not need a reason to go to college because it is an institution. The challenge becomes thinking of reasons for "not going." (22) Bird believes that if students do not want to be at college that there is no way one can expect them to stay for the "good of mankind." (23) All of this can be narrowed down into one sentence of hers: "The simple thesis of this book is that college is good for some people, but it is not good for everybody." (24)   
    Bird's 1975 assault on the necessity of a college education could not have come at a more appropriate time in film. The counterculture of the '60s was adopted by mainstream filmmaking as auteur directors were brought into the studio system. The "college mystique" that Bird attacks is the very image of higher education perpetuated by films before Animal House. The book highlights the fact that the college depicted in earlier films is not only untrue, but may also actually be harmful to those who should not be there. Her thesis is a foundation that the movie builds on, taking it up a level by portraying it in a nonacademic light and by stating that college is not necessary for success for anyone (all the protagonists of the film become successful after college through end credits after getting kicked out).

  In his book Celluloid Ivy, Hinton explores Hollywood's depiction of higher education in film from the 1960s to the 1990s. Hinton cites two specific reasons why films placed a large value on college: it has inherent worth as an end to itself or is a means to an end, specifically a gateway to economic success and improvement upon the previous generation's social status. (30-31) Many films presenting both arguments were made during the '60s, a period Hinton calls the "golden years" of American higher education in film. (113) Though movie parents continued to hang on to the education myth, films released later in the decade like The Graduate (1967) began to depict young people as ambiguous towards the value of college. (33) Yet, it took the outright in your face rejection of the education myth in Animal House to reach higher education's "nadir" in film. (44) Hinton notes that none of the students in the movie seem to be at Farber College for academic reasons; they attend because of "family expectations, social opportunities, and fun games." (50) Hinton believes the movie's message at its worst demonstrates that college is irrelevant to later success in life, and at its best shows that it is not necessary. (48) Not only do academics suffer, but the Greek system takes a beating that it has never recovered from as well; the rebel fraternity has been the main Greek portrayal ever since. (151)
    This book is critical to proving the thesis that Animal House represented the turning point of the depiction of college in film. It supports the argument that film before Animal House portrayed college in a mostly positive light, and the little criticism was ambiguous at its worst. Animal House was the first film to attack college outright, showing its "crudeness and vulgarity in their extremes." The movie became a "cultural phenomenon" and changed the portrayal of college in film forever. (46)

    The novel chronicles the life of Doug Kenney, one of the original writers of National Lampoon. Before Kenney came on, Harold Ramis and Ivan Reitman had been working on a script called "Freshmen Year" based on Ramis's experience at Washington University. Ramis and Kenney then worked on a script called "Laser Orgy Girls" that involved aliens and a Charles Manson like character all in high school. Deciding to move the story to college, the two brought on Chris Miller who supplied frat stories from his times at Dartmouth. At a writer's meeting they all agreed that "at the heart of every great fraternity, there is a great animal." They all immediately thought of Belushi. (278) The main drive of their treatment would be a "renegade" fraternity bent on "fun and chaos in equal parts" against a "Nixonian administration" and a desire for the characters to "create chaos." (279) All three writers, especially Kenney, were confident that they would write the "ultimate youth comedy." (280) In the end, "their desire was to tear down the institution they despised while celebrating the anarchic, sex-obsessed, beer-swilling teenager that they believed was within every decent red-blooded American male." Karp realizes that Animal House was one of the first movies to look at, in an "unflinchingly honest manner," American taboos on "sex, masturbation, race, and other previously unspeakable topics." (313)
    Karp's biography of Doug Kenney provides useful insight into the working and beginnings of what would eventually become Animal House. One can see the formation of the dominant themes discussed in the other sources that became the staple of college comedies. More importantly, the writer spurposefully set out to make a college movie that had never been done before, with themes that they knew would resonate with not only the youth of the day, but with every "red-blooded American male."

    Adamson chronicles the life and movies of the famous comedians of the 1930s, the Marx Brothers. Horse Feathers (1932) is a satire on not only the college education, but the typical college movies of the time as well. The Marx brothers recognized that the formality and ivy-tower isolation of a higher education was an alien experience for most moviegoers. Though today is very different from the worlds of the ‘30s, college professors still teach as if there is something you “should know for certain.” Fantasies and dreams are considered an “extraneous side to human nature.” However, the films of the Marx brothers reveled in the unreality of life. The ending of Horse Feather is a perfect example: three of the brothers marry the same widow. The movie has a “surrealism” to it that helps make a mockery of higher learning. However, Adamson claims that the film has “nothing to do with the reality of college,” but instead is a “mock of the world we know.” The comedy comes from its vastly absurd plot and characters.
    This book is important because it gives information on the major influence of Animal House, Horse Feathers. Adamson and many of the other sources believe that the mockery of the college institution originated with this Marx brothers film. However, an important distinction between the two films needs to be made. Horse Feathers is so absurd that its attack on higher education can get lost in the surrealism of the musical numbers, crazy characters, and insane plot twists. Though the film is certainly an inspiration, Animal House is more effective in its attack on the college myth because it is based in reality. Though some aspects are obviously stretched for the sake of comedy, moviegoers can see themselves in the characters and can buy into the plot. Because of this, Animal House, not Horse Feathers, was able to become the turning point in the history of college comedies, becoming the basis of this genre ever since.

    Umphlett credits the 1932 Marx Brothers film Horse Feathers as the main influence of Animal House. The Marx Brothers movie still remains one of the best films where both the institution of college and college-genre films face "equal shares of ridicule." (52) While many college-oriented films in the 70s used nostalgia (by placing the movie in a previous decade) to bring the audience a sense of sentimental feeling, Animal House had inspired movies that take pleasure in "singling out and deflating" everything that makes college life a unique time for a student. (166) The inspiration for the movie is based on the quintessentially American conflict of authority and self-expression, manifesting itself here in the feud between the educational leaders and the "renegade element" of the student population. (168) The characters do this by participating in an "anarchist devotion" to revolutionizing the other students through sexual pleasure. (166)      
    Umphlett's book contributes to thesis for two reasons. It introduces the idea that Horse Feathers was an influence for Animal House (a fact made true in many interviews with writer Harold Ramis and director john Landis). There is however, another source solely devoted to that movie. The other key contribution is the way which Umphlett defines Animal House's breaking of the myth of higher education as a practice in anarchy. While previous films celebrated the togetherness of the leaders of the education system and the students, Animal House defines itself by the conflict between the two. What's more important is that Umphlett defines this as an "American" conflict, giving it more strength and meaning than otherwise. This conflict between establishment and anarchy (along with Rich's sex) has become a basic staple of most college-themed movies since Animal House. 
 

    Gilliatt's review of Animal House is not so kind. She claims that the movie hurls a vast array of insults at America's educational system. (53) The acting in the film is of the "rolling-eye sort," and the attempted satire of college life is forced upon the audience with "smothered laughs." (54) The movie ignores major aspects of any campus by not including any black undergraduates and ignoring the "intellectually under endowed." (54) The movie is without wit, and its lampooning of college does a poor job because it does not depict any people with a sense of conflicted morality; all of the characters simply disregard all morals. (54) The movie is not merely antiacademic, but if someone did not know what real education was, one would think it "hermetic from the rest of the world to the point of hygienic refrigeration." (54) She believes the film shows "social untruths" and an almost "criminally false idea of the national sense of the comedic." (54)
    This review is a good argument against Animal House being the turning point. Gilliatt does immediately recognize the film's attack on the institution of college, especially the extent to which it does so in a lowbrow fashion. Education takes a brutal beating from which it seems it could never recover. Unlike Rich, however, her analysis is framed in the fact that she does not believe this depiction to be reality. She yearns for viewers to remember that it does not show any of the moral hesitation she assumes all experienced in college. However, her point here can be easily rebutted. It does not matter that Animal House does not accurately portray real college life. The idea that college is a place for academic pursuit by the pure at heart is no longer portrayed in film, even if that may be what it is in reality. Despite all of her criticism, Gilliatt senses the drastic changes Animal House brought to the depiction of higher learning.

    Rich's review of Animal House in Time takes a very fun and light tone towards the comedy. After a brief synopsis of the movie, Rich delves into his analysis of the film. He proclaims, "Before National Lampoon's Animal House, no one has ever had the guts to make an honest movie about college life." Rich argues that before Animal House, Hollywood chose to depict the college campus in an unrealistic way; it was portrayed as a "haven for earnest young lovers, gung-ho jocks, inspirational professors, and tortured class losers." However, the characters of Animal House are real; they represent the "true spirit" of college life. Rich believes the movie perfectly captures the "darkest secret" of American higher education: sex is one of the "noblest" reasons to attend. In addition to the realistic portrayal of college students, the film at times easily expresses the angst and hates of students coming of age in the 60s. The review is not free of criticism, however. Rich states that at times, the movie "revels in abject silliness." Yet, the highs of the film outweigh the lows, and the movie is definitely worth seeing.
     Rich's review of the film brings to light a unique part of the turning point: the depiction of the people who inhabit college campuses. According to Rich, films made before Animal House unrealistically portrayed them in positive and admirable stereotypes. However, this film cuts away all of the fat and finds the most basic and honest reason for attending college: sex. This subject is one that Americans can truly identify with because it is real. With sex at the center, the actions, motives, and worries of the characters can truly portray what it was like to grow up in the '60s. Yet as anyone knows, these themes are not specific to the '60s, but are universal in both time and place. This is why almost every college movie made since Animal House has had sex as its central theme.