Blogg 4 Alex Z

Question #5

When we watched this film in class, I couldn’t help but get upset about it, not literally but figuratively speaking.  David Mamets movie Oleanna was a good movie, it made me think about various aspects of Feminism.  I agree with what J.K Curry said that “The problem with Oleanna is that it is not really or not primarily, about sexual harassment at all, but rather about false allegations”.  When I watched this film I thought of the movie in the same way.  When Carol the student first came into his office, to me it seemed as if she didn’t even need to get help from John the professor.  From the beginning Carols act looked staged, as if she knew she was going to do what she did.  As the film progressed Carol was getting a little more aggressive, and you could see that she was no longer in his office for help anymore, it almost looked as if she was in there to find what she could get John in trouble for.  Towards the middle of the movie she had put together some accusations to get John in trouble with the schools board.  But she showed an aggressive form of feminism to find the most harmless things that John did, like holding her by her arms to try to calm her down, and she took it and turned it around and said “You tried to rape Me”, “…under the statute.  I am told.  It was battery”.  In the view of most of the society it was not battery or rape, it was just a teacher trying to calm down a student that needed it.  But to Carol it was something she could use to get John in trouble with the school.  And this leads to what J.K. Curry said when he states “Or, perhaps more accurately about exaggerated or distorted claims of harassment”.  Carol does use exaggerated forms of harassment as when she uses the time when she was getting a little crazy when she was with john in his office, and John just tried to calm her down but she took it as battery and she wanted to file charges with that occurrence.  With filing charges Carol could have John fired from the university that he has worked so hard to get to.  In doing so Carol may feel some sort of power that she got a such accredited teacher fired from that school, and doing that it would be a achievement to her and her so called group.