From The Freshman to The Chair
100 Years of College Life in Film and TV. Parts 3 and 4 of 4.
What follows is the second half of an essay on college films and television I originally published in 2021, in the literary magazine Genuine Gold. Read Parts 1 and 2 if you missed them.
3.
For most people under fifty, Animal House is the undisputed genesis of college filmography. But college life as a subject and setting for films has an even longer pedigree. From the earliest days of motion pictures, filmmakers trained their lenses on the college experience—and right from the start, audiences couldn’t get enough. Just a few of the more notable college films of the silent era include Buster Keaton’s College (1927, Dir. James W. Horne), Harold Lloyd’s The Freshman (1925, Dir. Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor), and So This Is College (1929, Dir. Sam Wood), the latter sounding more like breakout session at freshman orientation than a comedy film. Even the popular Merry Melodies cartoons of the 1930s capitalized on the popularity of college films with animated shorts like “Freddy the Freshman.”
College films were exceedingly popular in the early days of motion pictures through the 1940s. Going to college at this time was still a rare and exotic thing. A glimpse of college life in celluloid promised to peel back the curtain for the average American moviegoer for a fraction of the cost of attending. Film scholar and archivist Brian Taves, writing in The Moving Image: The Journal of the Association of Moving Image Archivists, asserts that the college film genre was at the peak of its popularity in the 1920s and 30s. Because so few Americans attended college, he writes, “higher education was less widespread and seemed more unusual to audiences” (Taves 139). College today has become much more of a necessity where once it was an exoticism.
In the silent era, college films centered on student life, with an overriding interest in the peculiar nuances that made it so distinct from the workaday world. These films obsessed over the weird minutiae of the collegiate experience: the way freshmen (also called “freshies”) wore beanies and turtlenecks, the college yells,[1] and this violent new game called “American football,” a pastime so brutal President Teddy Roosevelt had to intervene to save it. (David Dayen writes that football at the time was less a game and more of “a cross between a street fight and the trench warfare of World War I.”)
The Freshman is exemplary of this era of college movies, right down to the pranking and gridiron follies. Lloyd’s brilliant acting helped to launch a craze for college films that would last until mid-century and cement the college film as a proper genre in the minds of Americans. Lloyd was a comedic actor whose work in American cinema now ranks alongside that of Buster Keaton’s and Charlie Chaplin’s. Known for his “Glasses” character, a sort of striving, often hapless, Paul Rudd-esque everyman of the silent era, Lloyd’s The Freshman contains all the familiar tropes of the 1920s college film: a bright-eyed but clueless college freshman who’s desperate to fit in, a crusty old dean out of touch with reality, and a near-total refusal to acknowledge anything having to do with actual learning.
These ancient tropes are still with us today, of course, though they have been refined over the years and, like all the products of the culture industry, now conform to seven specific “types” or “schools” that together make up what I am calling the “Universe-ity of College Films.” Based on my review of the 150+ college films that have been made since the invention of motion pictures, and with help from Wiley Lee Umphlett’s magisterial history of the college film in his The Movies Go to College: Hollywood and the World of the College-Life Film, the seven “colleges” of the University of College Films are as follows:
1. Historical films about college life. Mostly appearing in the silent era through the 1930s and 40s, these films focus on the uniqueness of college life and how different it is from the rest of society. They tend to feature plots that revolve around sports (especially football), fitting in/not fitting in/wanting to fit in, and the complexities of the American socio-economic system. Umphlett’s overview of these films is his book is the best in the business.
2. Raunchy, low-brow comedies. The genre most of us think of first when we think of college films. Some of these films are solo entries, like 1994’s PCU (Dir. Hart Bochner) and the Todd Phillips-directed Road Trip (2000) and Old School (2003), though many are part of a franchise, like the Revenge of the Nerds series, the American Pie series, and the National Lampoon college films stretching a quarter century from Tim Matheson in Animal House to Ryan Reynolds in Van Wilder (2002, Dir. Walt Becker)[2]. And these are just the more notable ones. Other straight-to-video garbage you’ve likely never heard of from this category include the raunchfest MILF (2010, Dir. Scott Wheeler) and the godawful Slackers (2002, Dir. Dewey Nicks), not to be confused with the far, far superior Richard Linklater film Slacker (1991).
3. Dramatic films that use college as a backdrop. This is a huge list of movies—larger than you may think. A few of the more notable films from this school include Smart People (2008, Dir. Noam Murro); A Beautiful Mind (2001, Dir. Ron Howard); Whiplash (2014, Dir. Damien Chazelle); The Social Network (2010, Dir. David Fincher); Submission (2017, Dir. Richard Levine); and St. Elmo’s Fire (1985, Dir. Joel Schumacher). I would suggest that these films aren’t really about college per se, but they exploit the setting, the stock characters, the attitudes, and the codes to make whatever grander point dramatic films are in the habit of making (i.e., dealing with loss, finding oneself, overcoming challenges, finding a White Castle that is still open after midnight, etc.) Some installments you might not have come across before including the recent Johnny Depp vehicle The Professor (2018, Dir. Wayne Roberts); When He’s Not a Stranger (1989, Dir. John Gray); and Silencing Mary (1998, Dir. Craig R. Baxley). The latter two films are both issues-driven films about rape on college campuses that are well worth seeing at some point.
4. “Fish out of water”-college films. These are movies centered around people who don’t “belong” in college end up there somehow—usually with hilarious (and/or poignant) effects. 22 Jump Street (2014, Dir. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller) is a good example of this category, as is the chronically underrated Accepted (2006, Dir. Steve Pink), a film that is quite subversive in its scattershot critique of the US higher education industrial complex and the intense pressures students face to get accepted at the nation’s best schools.
5. The college sports film. Nuff said. One notable film in this category includes the Adam Sandler vehicle The Waterboy[3] (1998, Dir. Frank Coraci), the most profitable sports comedy film ever produced (it grossed nearly $40 million domestic in its opening weekend). Others you already know include Knute Rockne, All American (1940, Dir. Lloyd Bacon and William K. Howard), Glory Road (2006, Dir. James Gartner) and We Are Marshall (2006, Dir. McG). Some you’ve likely never heard of include Everybody Wants Some!! (2016, Dir. Richard Linklater) and College Coach (1933, Dir. William A. Wellman), the latter featuring a young John Wayne in his final bit part.
6. The college slasher/horror film. Co-eds, ax-wielding maniacs…you get the idea. A few of the more notable films in this category include Scream 2 (1997, Dir. Wes Craven), Kristy (2014, Dir. Oliver Blackburn), Final Exam (1981, Dir. Jimmy Huston), and Monster on the Campus (1958, Dir. Jack Arnold).
7. The serious, classic film about college that has something original to say. These films, like all classics, are rare, but they do appear from time to time. Think The Paper Chase (1973, Dir. James Bridges), Educating Rita (1983, Dir. Lewis Gilbert), The Strawberry Statement (1970, Dir. Stuart Hagmann), and The Graduate (1967, Dir. Mike Nichols).
4.
Nearly a century after the premiere of The Freshman and nearly a half century since Animal House, Netflix rolled out The Chair in August of 2021. (One suspects the timing may have been to coincide with the start of the fall semester.) Created by Amanda Peet and Annie Julia Wyman, The Chair is an episodic series about a fictional, quasi-Ivy League institution named Pembroke that upon its release predictably sent #AcademicTwitter and even the venerable Chronicle of Higher Education into self-righteous paroxysms of “yes, but here’s why a chair would never actually do that…” and “please read this thirteen-tweet thread regarding the inaccuracies I have found in the series so far…”
The main plot revolves around Ji-Yoon Kim (Sandra Oh), the newly appointed chair of the English department (why always English?) who must navigate between the Scylla of declining enrollments and a cost-conscious upper administration, on the one hand, and the Charybdis of past-their-prime deadweight faculty on the other. Her close friend, department colleague, and potential love interest Bill Dobson (Jay Duplass), a popular professor of American literature, runs afoul of the woke patrol when a bored student captures smartphone video of Dobson giving a mock Nazi salute during a lecture. Predictably, the completely-taken-out-of-context video achieves instant virality just as Kim and Dobson begin to explore their possible romantic feelings for each other, thus providing space for the show to comment on contemporary topics like the politics of cancel culture and leftist wokeism. Other subplots, played mostly for laughs, have to do with doddering dinosaur faculty, a scantily clad Title IX intake officer, and a faculty member whose office is moved to the basement of the campus fitness center.
Notably, The Chair focuses most of its attention on faculty rather than students; in fact, it would be fair to say that the students are here mostly for scenic purposes and to play the occasional straight man role, as when Bill asks his TA, “Where is my dongle?” (“It’s in your hand,” is the ready reply.) #Classic. Not since the untimely demise of CBS’s The Education of Max Bickford (2001-2002), a Richard Dreyfuss vehicle, has television chronicled the role of college faculty in such striking detail and with contemporary panache—and much of it is fairly on point, with lots of easter eggs and insider-ey jargon that only an academic in the humanities could love (e.g., “PMLA’s article of the year,” the ongoing backdrop of declining enrollments, and the ominous admini-speak phrase “butts in seats”). The show’s title suggests from the outset that this fictionalized representation of collegiate life intends to portray the lives of faculty—rather than the traditional focus on students, sports, and inebriated hijinks.
The elevated focus alone makes The Chair a unique viewing experience. So few movies and TV shows focus on faculty work that to see our struggles played back to us via our $17.99 per month streaming services is almost too much to take. I am not alone in this feeling. In the weeks after its debut, social media and the web were filled with hot takes on The Chair, and many of them articulated an angsty dread about even sitting down to watch the show. This was perhaps especially true for academics of color who squirmed with recognition at some of Ji-Yoon’s struggles. Writing in Time, Beth Nguyen describes the “pain of recognition” she experienced watching The Chair:
I am the same age as Ji-Yoon and what I felt watching her was the pain of recognition, the tension of having come up in an old-guard era while trying to lead in a new-guard era. On one side is the character of Dr. Joan Hambling (Holland Taylor), a white feminist who’s on a list for possible forced retirement, who never went up for full professor because her research got sidetracked by departmental duties, who intends to support Ji-Yoon but, fueled by bitterness, undercuts her. On the other side is Dr. Yasmin McKay, whose innovative teaching and research win over students and who knows how much she herself deserves. When Ji-Yoon tells her, “You are the going to be the first tenured Black woman in this department,” Yaz’s response is perfect: “That’s why I’m leaving.” She has recognized what Ji-Yoon and certainly Joan before her never did.
The Chair gets a lot wrong, too. Where are the adjuncts? In a real university setting, there would be adjuncts teaching nearly every other class, possibly more. And department meetings don’t look like corporate board rooms. And who really has an office as well-appointed and leathery as Ji-Yoon’s? Some faculty reviewers found fault with the simplistic portrayals of student activism or the supposed ease with which Ji-Yoon is supposed to persuade her older departmental colleagues (with tenure!) to retire. But all of this is beside the point. In fact—and here’s the closest thing you’re going to get in this essay to a proper thesis statement—getting it “right,” whatever that might mean, is hardly the goal when it comes to this kind of entertainment. It never has been. The collegiate TV series, alongside its first cousin, the collegiate film, are both hunting much bigger psychological game than providing carbon copy-accurate portrayals of the lives of students and faculty on American university campuses. In providing viewers with a refracted, slightly askew sense of what collegiate life is like, one that is anchored in realism but that allows for a fuller picture of campus life to emerge, we see more accurately and more acutely the tensions of American political life. The bottom line is that The Chair is an entertaining show—well worth carving out some time for in your streaming media regimen.
That is, of course, if you can make time for well-earned relaxation in a break from the paper chasing. Whether you choose to indulge your fantasies via the Netflix empire or risk social interaction at a traditional theatre, fictional representations of college life will continue to provide the escapism we all need – a few, short minutes of good ol’ fashioned fun. If you’re lucky, you may even learn something or be challenged in a way you didn’t expect (I can’t help but attempt a lesson in this essay – it’s the professor in me). But that isn’t the goal. Looking into the distorted vista of the college provides an escape from the dysphoria of the daily grind. And isn’t that the point of all entertainment? It doesn’t take a college degree to know that.
So the next time Netflix cues up The Chair or you stumble onto Animal House in late-night syndication, treat the screen less like a getaway car and more like a rear-view mirror: its reflection is warped, yes, but it still shows where we’ve been and hints at where higher ed—or at least our collective fantasy of it—might be headed. College films and TV may traffic in keg-stand clichés or faculty farce, yet their enduring pull reminds us that what happens on campus, real or imagined, is never just ivory-tower trivia; it is a compressed drama of class, culture, and power staged for anyone willing to watch closely. And, in fact, such dramas are not confined to print or celluloid or digital film, either. They are happening right now in the United States, as Donald Trump and his acolytes in state houses around the country dismantle higher education as we’ve known it for the last century or more.
Just when we thought the fun-house mirror of pop-culture college was warped enough, along lurches the real-world remake: President Trump pledging to gut the Department of Education “on day one”; Indiana’s own Mike Braun cheer-leading a budgetary bonfire that would leave our public campuses fighting over the last dry-erase marker, with Indiana University singled out among public universities in the state; and a conga line of governors from Tallahassee to Austin to Indy racing to outlaw any syllabus that makes students think too hard about, well, anything.
If the last century of campus films gave us Animal House chaos played for laughs, the next reel looks more like a slasher flick where the villain is wielding austerity, censorship, and a MAGA ball-peen hammer. Higher ed, once the backdrop for our most raucous fantasies, is now the battleground for a very literal fight over who gets to learn, who gets to teach, and whether the whole enterprise survives the sequel.
If we laugh, flinch, or feel a twinge of recognition, that’s the point: the genre invites us to interrogate the story line of American aspiration even as we enjoy the spectacle. And in a nation still arguing over the price and purpose of a degree, that double vision—pleasure on the surface, critique underneath—might be the most illuminating lesson pop culture has to offer.
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Works Cited
Benchley, Robert. “Another College Yell.” The New Yorker, 22 Feb. 1930, pp. 17-19.
Dayen, David. “How Teddy Roosevelt Saved Football.” Politico Magazine, 20 Sept. 2014, https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/09/teddy-roosevelt-saved-football-111146/.
Dolmage, Jay Timothy. Academic Ableism: Disability and Higher Education. U of Michigan P, 2017.
Miller, Andrew C. “The American Dream Goes to College: The Cinematic Student Athletes of College Football.” The Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 43, no. 6, 2010, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5931.2010.00797.x.
Mitchell, Elvis. “Critic’s Notebook: Revisiting Faber College (Toga, Toga, Toga!).” The New York Times, 25 Aug. 2003, https://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/25/movies/critic-s-notebook-revisiting-faber-college-toga-toga-toga.html.
Nguyen, Beth. “The Chair Is a Pretty Accurate Portrayal of What It's Like to Be a Woman Professor of Color. That's Why It Can Be Painful to Watch.” Time, 23 Aug. 2021, https://time.com/6092072/the-chair-netflix-academia/.
Taves, Brian. “Toward a Comprehensive Genre Taxonomy.” The Moving Image: The Journal of the Association of Moving Image Archivists, vol. 1, no. 1, 2001, https://www.jstor.org/stable/41167045.
Terry, Josh. “We Asked Actual Academics to Review Netflix’s The Chair.” Vice, 25 Aug. 2021, https://www.vice.com/en/article/qj85bb/we-asked-actual-academics-to-review-new-netflix-show-the-chair.
Umphlett, Wiley Lee. The Movies Go to College: Hollywood and the World of the College-Life Film. Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 1984.
Notes
[1] In the February 22, 1930 issue of The New Yorker, written up in the “Talk of the Town” section, Robert Benchley tells of one such college yell that had lately sprung up from the University of Pennsylvania: “Rowbottom.” According to Benchley, a Penn student coming home after a night of revelry was in the habit of calling out drunkenly to his roommate, whose surname was Rowbottom, to come downstairs and fetch him. (Apparently, Penn’s dormitory entrances all looked the same after a night of heavy boozing.) Rowbottom, “himself a blameless fellow,” as Benchley assures us, didn’t mind putting his inebriated roommate to bed, but the rest of the campus did mind the drunken caterwauling, and would start throwing flotsam out of the windows of their dorms in protest. Gradually, over the course of twenty years or so, “Rowbottom” became a kind of student rallying cry: “Nowadays,” Benchley writes, “the cry rises oftenest during prom-time, or after a football victory; they say the U. of P. campus is a sight to behold after a Rowbottom evening” (19).
[2] See also the sequel National Lampoon’s Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj (2006, Dir. Mort Nathan) and the straight-to-DVD prequel National Lampoon’s Van Wilder: Freshman Year (2009, Dir. Harvey Glazer). Shockingly, Ryan Reynolds did not reprise his title role in either of these spin-offs.
[3] The Waterboy is mostly a rip-off of The Freshman—there was even a lawsuit filed against the Disney Corporation by the granddaughter of Harold Lloyd.