Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, May 10, 1993 TAG: 9305100296
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JIM SPENCER
DATELINE: WILLIAMSBURG LENGTH: Medium
The last 15 pages of the book are a short story that chronicles the sexual exploits of a couple of lustful college boys on a weekend trip to the beach.
The whole thing was too much for the Review's faculty adviser. As the magazine went to press, he threatened to withdraw his support and told its upstart editor that he might even ask the college president to cut off funding.
Questionable content and controversy aren't new to student journals at William and Mary. On the 20th anniversary of the Review's "sex and sand" issue, the taste police once again are running amok on the campus.
The calls now are for the college to abandon its financial support of The Pillory, a fledgling humor magazine that ticked off a lot black students with a cartoon called "Mighty Whitie."
This call to censure, one hopes, will fail as miserably as the faculty adviser's did two decades ago. If it succeeds, it will put African-American students at William and Mary in league with Jesse Helms and others who don't want public funds paying for art that mainstream America considers offensive. That's a dangerous place for any minority group to be.
I spent a recent afternoon in the Special Collections section of the William and Mary library reading every issue of The Pillory ever printed. It was easy. There are only six.
Parts are hilarious. I laughed out loud at the "Ten Lesser Known Dr. Seuss Books," including "Horton Hears His Imminent Death," "Green Beans and Spam" and "Thidwick the Well-Endowed Moose." I also found plenty of stuff that was boring and tasteless. But nowhere did I find anything that could be taken seriously.
Each and every issue of The Pillory begins with "A message from the Weasel," the magazine's mascot. It says something like: "None of this is meant personally . . . . All of the contents were sifted carefully, and so if you find it offensive . . . good. Satire should be. Humor and satire function as tools to expose the problems that nobody dares to face in a straight manner."
"Mighty Whitie" certainly does. The cartoon hero portrays black men as jive-talking drug dealers in T-shirts that say "Watermelon" and "Fried Chicken," Asians as slant-eyed provocateurs of "Yellow Peril," and Indians as "Turbanators," all bent on taking "Mighty Whitie's" power and women.
Are those stereotypes and fears vicious and racist? You betcha.
Are there students at William and Mary who believe them? Probably.
Does this cartoon affirm their ignorance and hatred? No way.
"Mighty Whitie" makes racists look foolish, which, one can only hope, will make them rethink their positions.
The cartoon is definitely satire. It's also heavy-handed and extremely sophomoric, which shouldn't surprise anyone. The Pillory's editor is, after all, a sophomore.
"Mighty Whitie" fails to meet the standard set down by the Weasel himself. "In a lawsuit-laden America," he writes, "quality is the only successful preventative defense for humor."
Nevertheless, if colleges and universities pulled the plug on all the bad art produced on their campuses, there would be no student publications at all.
I should know. I wrote that short story about "sex and sand" 20 years ago.
Jim Spencer is a columnist for the Newport News Daily Press. Knight-Ridder/Tribune
by CNB