Depravity, Again, in New Haven

Those who attribute some modicum of dignity to the human condition were profoundly saddened Jan. 19, when it became known that Yale University undergraduates are in the early stages of producing and directing a pornographic movie. The participants in the movie--one hesitates to call them "actors"--are to be drawn from the ranks of the Yale student body, meaning that the film will be almost entirely composed of Yale undergraduates removing their clothing and performing sexual acts. We at The Crimson, filled by the very prospect with existential terror, can only hope that the production will at some point falter--or that a benevolent God, one who loves righteousness and punishes iniquity, will intervene to stop a film that should not be.

The video, to be titled "The Staxxx," breaks new ground in purporting to depict the sexual activities of college students. It is being produced by members of "Porn n' Chicken," a student group devoted to the noble social goals of eating fried chicken and masturbating. Yet if their motive was to "give something back to the porn community," as one friend of a filmmaker told the Yale Daily News, the members of Porn n' Chicken have chosen a rather unfortunate gift. Few have sufficient scientific curiosity (or stomach) to appreciate the performances of copulating Yalies, a part of the human experience that up until now has gone mercifully unrecorded on film. Some, perhaps, may find novelty in such a work of cinema; like rubberneckers at a car crash, though they can't stand to look, they simply can't look away. Yet we who are forced to witness the insecure exhibitionism of drunken Elis every November know better, and we will not be surprised if the end result is more reminiscent of Pink Flamingoes than Boogie Nights.

Some will praise the Elis' openness and the commitment to equality shown by their decision to celebrate, rather than conceal, their physical deformities. Yet this is not the first time that Yale students have delved into the pornographic. In 1752, the city fathers of New Haven were scandalized by the student production of "Ye Callipygous Maidens of Yale," whose participants were famously described by Voltaire as "neither callipygous, nor maidens, nor even women, at least as far as I could tell." An 1841 production of "The Tumescence of Eli" was cancelled only when no Eli could be found with sufficiently long-lasting tumescence. And in more recent times, the residents of Saybrook College have chosen to strip at the Harvard-Yale football game, in the process--as we have earlier noted--revealing "their frail, pasty forms to the eyes of others for the first time since their mothers bathed them."

Perhaps one should have expected such a project eventually to take shape. After all, the pornography industry is a constant force in the culture of New Haven, being the third-largest employer behind bail bondsmen and brownfield cleanup. And having little enough to offer in the life of the mind, Yalies have naturally turned to the life of the flesh instead--or, in the case of former Saybrook Master Antonio C. Lasaga, turned to thousands of pictures of naked little boys. Students here may have difficulty understanding such a mentality; at Harvard, the play-acting of a film such as "The Staxxx" would be profoundly unnecessary, what with the easy accessibility of the Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Love Palace, whose thick marble columns and bulging stacks have inspired many a pair of Harvard lovebirds to episodes of vigorous coupling. Yet in the spirit of charity, we must remember that Yale students deprived of such "extracurriculars" are far more unused than we to healthy pleasures, and that they must occasionally resort to the sorry excuse that one is an "artist" producing "a porn film" in order to find partners for the realization of their repressed fantasies.

All the same, the sight of the hairy, flabby posterior of a Yalie (male or female) is one that should haunt our nightmares, not grace our video collection. It opens the door for all manner of depravity; shall we soon be forced to witness "Bedtime with Lasaga" or "Bulldoggystyle"? We call upon the citizens of New Haven, who may yet retain some scraps of self-respect amidst the crumbling ruins of their civilization, to prevent the creation of this monstrosity--with pitchforks and torches, if necessary. And should they fail in this endeavor, not all will be lost; next November, when the Harvard stands echo with a lusty chant of "Yalies Suck," we'll even have the videotape to prove it.