On Saturday night I went to UPAC’s "Burly Bear Comedy Show" hoping for a few laughs before hitting the books. By the end of the night, after sitting through slams on various ethnicities and religions interspersed with perverted images and extremely unfunny profanity, I deeply regretted going.
When the word comedy comes to mind, images of the television show Seinfeld or perhaps Marx Brothers movies may pop into my head. What doesn’t come to mind are ethnic slurs, videos of dogs having intercourse, or slams on religions like Christianity and Buddhism. How UPAC Comedy’s production can even be considered to border on comedy is entirely beyond me.
As a student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the activity fee I pay each year goes to the student union, which in turn gives out a portion to each activity, in effect sponsoring it. To know that even a small fraction of my money is going to support this rubbish is appalling. To have my activity fee pay for UPAC Comedy is equivalent of having the U.S. Government sponsor the Ku Klux Klan with my tax money.
RPI, according to a resolution made by the Student Senate on September 11, 2001, stands "committed to represent and uphold the best in human behavior—empathy, dignity, and mutual respect" and promises that "no single group on campus—ethnic, religious, political, or other—will be allowed to be victimized or targeted." And, according to GM Gil Valadez and President of the Union Ariana Twitchell in an address made the same date, "RPI is unique in its diversity of student population, in regards to race, religion, socio-economic origin, sexual identity, and many other factors. We are a unified campus in our pursuit of academic excellence and strength of character."
Even while RPI describes itself as a tolerant community, the fact that such an intolerant "comedy" show, featuring not only blatant profanity, but attacks on race and religion, can pass whatever standards the Union has is a disgrace; the fact that most of the audience applauded is even worse.
