Spring Break
Is the end in sight for college movies?
Dylan Polk/Staff Reporter
Issue date: 10/3/08 Section: The Verge
There's a picture being painted by Hollywood.
Using a wide array of stereotypes, a portrait of the college atmosphere is created for those who can't fill their own canvases.
The term "college movies" is stuck to any film that creates an image of what college life might be.
At one point in time, college movies were revered as fun, somewhat intelligent comedies with enough balance between gags and pranks, plot depth and character development for the audience to become engaged in the movie without walking away feeling like they'd sat through 90 minutes of brainless drunken antics.
But that was at least two decades ago.
Today, this subgenre is left by the wayside. Critics almost unanimously agree on the absurdity of these movies. On RottenTomatoes.com, a popular site for movie reviews, movies like "Van Wilder" and "Dorm Daze" received extremely low approval ratings - the latter has a 0 percent rating.
But what can account for the mass production of lackluster films, and how has this genre slipped into obscurity?
Nick Rogers is the former editor of the State-Journal Register's weekly arts and entertainment section, A&E.
He says college movies take incoming students' dreams and skew them into a plot.
"A lot of college movies play off this myth that college is some wild orgy of sex and parties," Rogers said. "For some, this may be true, but not for the mass majority."
Students agree with this notion of some fantasy party.
"It's kind of like a fantasy," said Clayton Lynch, a freshman business major. "It's like what they wished it was like."
Rogers divided college movies into two contexts he said the movies tend to follow: the absurd, out-of-control alcohol and sex-fueled film, and the films where characters try to blend in and are played off to be more relatable to the audience.
Rogers cited last summer's blockbuster, "Superbad," as a perfect blend of both camps.
"One good thing, especially with Judd Apatow's movies, is the combination of what it's really like with the completely absurd," Rogers said.
Using a wide array of stereotypes, a portrait of the college atmosphere is created for those who can't fill their own canvases.
The term "college movies" is stuck to any film that creates an image of what college life might be.
At one point in time, college movies were revered as fun, somewhat intelligent comedies with enough balance between gags and pranks, plot depth and character development for the audience to become engaged in the movie without walking away feeling like they'd sat through 90 minutes of brainless drunken antics.
But that was at least two decades ago.
Today, this subgenre is left by the wayside. Critics almost unanimously agree on the absurdity of these movies. On RottenTomatoes.com, a popular site for movie reviews, movies like "Van Wilder" and "Dorm Daze" received extremely low approval ratings - the latter has a 0 percent rating.
But what can account for the mass production of lackluster films, and how has this genre slipped into obscurity?
Nick Rogers is the former editor of the State-Journal Register's weekly arts and entertainment section, A&E.
He says college movies take incoming students' dreams and skew them into a plot.
"A lot of college movies play off this myth that college is some wild orgy of sex and parties," Rogers said. "For some, this may be true, but not for the mass majority."
Students agree with this notion of some fantasy party.
"It's kind of like a fantasy," said Clayton Lynch, a freshman business major. "It's like what they wished it was like."
Rogers divided college movies into two contexts he said the movies tend to follow: the absurd, out-of-control alcohol and sex-fueled film, and the films where characters try to blend in and are played off to be more relatable to the audience.
Rogers cited last summer's blockbuster, "Superbad," as a perfect blend of both camps.
"One good thing, especially with Judd Apatow's movies, is the combination of what it's really like with the completely absurd," Rogers said.
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