Sarah Rideout has been an exemplary and courageous member of the Fictional Sociology program teaching team. She received one of the only
ovations for an in-depth and thorough look at Swift's Tale of a Tub. It was through her that I encountered two of the more important aspects
of satire, which my previous reading had not uncovered. Her reading of a work in progress, which although she attempted to disavow it, was of a
highly personnel nature. This illustrated that satire requires a self-implication for it to be effective. The film Temple of the Fetus, which
she offered to help support her comments on the impossibly manipulated images of the fetus. The film showed through the format of satiric news
coverage the methods by which the feminine is pushed further, thanks to arrogant technicians in the medical field, into the position of a vessel
for genetic experimentation, instead of a human body. This was in my opinion one of the most effective films we saw all quarter, which second
only to the film Lenny generated the most discussion in seminar.
As a seminar leader Sarah made many important contributions to the discussions. At times as she mentioned towards the end the quarter, she
worried that some of the participants were holding back their own comments and some others were being intentionally distracting. At times I fit
both of these categories, none the less I never felt pressured to contribute or to avoid particular forms of commentary. One of our best seminars
was on Dave Hickey's The Invisible Dragon, largely due to the subject matter being discussed, that being the concept of mediation as
related to one of the essays where Hickey shows that art is sterilized when taken out of its socio-political context or culture. The discussion on
the film Lenny, was equally as important for the liveliness and the implications of how cultural forces react lethally when certain taboos are
skewered as Lenny Bruce did in his comedy.
I called Sarah courageous for her and the other faculty's experiment with The Spokesperson. Few members of the faculty would so readily
have taken on the complacency and comfort of the Evergreen environment. And as I mentioned in response to Lenny, there are
repercussions when you target sacred cows that a culture or group is unwilling to look at critically or even openly. I feel their work on this
experiment deserves special merit, for no other reason than it is putting the work they were attempted to impart to us in to action. Not content
just to talk they walked that talk and consequently incurred the wrath and scorn of those whom it was directed at, the pompous and the
self-inflated at the CPJ and in the administration. This has been one of my favorite experiences at Evergreen thus far, and I personally feel few
other professors would take the risks Sarah and the others have taken; some of them are incapable of even looking at the purpose or intent and
recognizing how well it worked. As Jose Gomez said, "I am envious, I couldn't have created a better example for students to learn about these
ideas of freedom of expression and constitutional law if I had tried." That speaks for itself.